


Once in My Days I'll be a Madcap

by NomDePlumLoki



Category: Henry IV Part 1 - Shakespeare, Henry IV Part 2 - Shakespeare, Henry V - Shakespeare, The Hollow Crown (2012)
Genre: M/M, Origin Story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-07-24
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:01:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 35
Words: 41,867
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24827998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NomDePlumLoki/pseuds/NomDePlumLoki
Summary: If a king wants to understand his people he must live amongst them. When Hal meets a man who doesn't know his face he takes pains to protect his anonymity and learn what it is to be loved as a man and not a prince.Daily updates.
Relationships: Prince Hal (Shakespeare)/Edward "Ned" Poins
Comments: 58
Kudos: 21





	1. Chapter One

Chapter One

If a king wants to understand his people he must live amongst them.

Hal has not lived these past eighteen years, not really. He has existed most admirably, eating well, gaining his letters—English, latin, _et il parle un peu francais_ —and learning to fight like a soldier, but though these activities have exercised his body and his brain, they are what, as far as Hal can tell, any boy of his family and rank must do. Nothing has trained him to be a king.

Now, at twenty years of age, it is time for him to take charge of his own education. He has left his father’s castle, gone out into the world, and found a seat of learning that no gentleman shares with him.

Rocking back and forth on a rickety stool in the corner of the Boar’s Head tavern, he takes in the collection of drunkards, thieves and ne’er-do-wells he will one day have dominion over. They’re a motley band with nothing to recommend them, but for better or worse they’re his people and each moment in their company teaches him more about how they live, what they think, and how he can ever lead such men.

Falstaff sits beside him, telling lie after lie and pleasing their company. Could he be marched into battle? He’s older than Methuselah and fatter than Eglon, but Hal would give him a chance. His friends, even rotten as they are, might yet turn to goodness if asked to fight beside their king for their country. All Hal’s thoughts are thus, the business of war occupying him when he thinks of his duty. It is better to think of that than to entertain baser thoughts.

No, he will not think of them, no matter what the pint of sack in his stomach says. He will not look left to the pumping arse of the man who fucks Doll into the wall, nor right to the young gentleman who sits by the barrels making the smallest of small beers last over an hour now. Their gaze has already met once, his eyes locking with a look as familiar as his own. Too familiar. Hal had to look away.

If they notice each other again, something must be done. He will have to approach, to find out who the young man is and what his business might be in such an establishment. This is a place for curs and the future kings who study them, not slender, sweet-faced lads in peach-coloured tights.

Everyone is laughing. It doesn’t last. Hal suddenly becomes aware that the awkward silence around them is because he wasn’t listening and therefore did not respond as expected. He looks around at their tense, pinched faces, and forces out a chuckle.

“As you were. My mind is absent tonight but there’s no need for your mirth to go with it. Excuse me.”

He rises from his stool knowing there is only one place he will go. He can’t ignore a gentleman. It wouldn’t be right.

His companions protest at his leaving but he ignores them, picking up his stool as he goes and placing it down across the table from the young gentleman before sliding into the seat. It is a bold move, inviting himself to another man’s table, and there’s a thrill in that Hal would never attempt to describe. It would not flatter him to explain it.

They lock eyes again and Hal says, “You’re too nicely dressed for this tavern.”

He expects the young man to be startled by the blunt statement but no, his new host is unruffled. “Would you have me in rags? Nothing at all?”

Hal would have him bent over on the table between them, that is the honest truth of it, and he thinks, from the lad’s expression, that he’d be happy to oblige. But even here it’s not so easy with boys. There’s none for sale and he has resigned himself to looking and wondering, and contenting himself with softer pleasures as becomes a future king. He doesn’t want a bastard, but if he gets one on one of the tavern whores he won’t be ashamed to tell his father.

He’s not ashamed of this either, though this his father can never know. In fact, Hal likes the bold question and the way the young man looks up at him with a hunger he’s never before seen. Women have admired him, and he’s noticed men doing the same, but none with the urgency in this man’s eyes.

“You’ll draw the attention of thieves in those clothes,” Hal says. “You look like you have something to steal.”

“And your tongue betrays you,” the lad replies. “You speak too nicely and you would be temptation for anyone looking for a heavy purse.”

Oh, this boy. This man, surely, for if they weren’t the same age the other lad could only be a few years older. Hal grins at him, basks in pleasure when his smile is returned. “There I shall have to dispute you. My tongue is as capable of wickedness as any man’s, though I grant you, it’s never lowly.”

“Never? What a pity.”

“Hal!” It’s Falstaff, rising slowly from his seat, steadying himself with his hands on the table. “Come settle a dispute for us.”

Hal wants no part of their dispute and is turning to tell him such when Falstaff says, “What is greater proof of a man’s trustworthiness? The appearance of goodness or the good word of friends?”

“The latter, of course.” Hal leaves unsaid that it depends upon the friends in question and none of Falstaff’s would pass muster.

“And what about men who have decency in their looks but not their heart?” Falstaff looks to Hal’s new companion and then back to Hal. It isn’t a subtle message, but it’s not insulting enough to start a fight.

“The truth will out in the end,” Hal replies, rising from his stool. To his lad, who stares into the dregs of his beer, he says, “Let me deal with this old fool. I will return.”

Falstaff waddles to a corner and waves Hal over.

Hal takes one look back at the young man. The lad refuses to meet his eye.

Hal follows the fat old liar into the corner. Voice low, Hal asks, “Who is he?”

“Edward Poins.” Falstaff says the name as if the boy is notorious, but Hal has never heard of him, nor heard any man or woman mention him in the weeks he had been drinking with them. He shakes his head and Falstaff explains, “Poins is a second son and second thought who comes occasionally to pick fights and lighten purses.”

“He’s a thief?”

“He’s never been caught but one man was unable to pay for his supper after spending an evening with him.”

Hal had planned to lighten his purse on the lad but not like that. “So he’s a good thief?” he asks, eyeing Poins with fresh interest. He looks like a gentleman, speaks with the cadence of one too, and their looks and words indicated the same desire. But that doesn’t mean he can be trusted.

“Poins is rotten,” Falstaff whispers to Hal conspiratorially, the sour smell of beer on his breath drifting between them. “Write him out of your story and watch your purse.”

Hal’s purse is too full. Would it be any real hardship to lighten it with a man like that? He’d have to pay any one of the women. What did it matter to pay a man instead, even if the man helped himself?

“You’re sure he’s bad? He looks like a gentleman.”

“If his brother dies, maybe one day he will be.”

Many a man of Hal’s class might find himself in that situation—he can’t think worse of Poins for it. He nod’s thanks to Falstaff but returns to the table where Poins is waiting for him, eyes still firmly on his drink.

So far their looks have been direct if not their words. It is time their tongues catch up. “Why are you here?” Hal asks, thinking he’d like the truth but also eager to gauge the youth’s capacity to lie.

“Cannot a man drink when he thirsts?”

“There are plenty of places you may drink, plenty more for you than some of those around us. You look like a gentleman. Gentlemen don’t come here.”

At this Poins smiles and meets his gaze, but this time it’s unpleasant. There’s mockery in his voice as he says, “Faith, they do. You must be fresher than you’d have me think.”

“I’ve been here every night this month and not seen you.”

“I could not afford silk stockings if I came every night. And yet, now I look at you, I see you are well clothed enough too.”

Hal has always styled himself plainly to visit the Boar’s Head, but his garments are finely sewn. He has never wore the deep purple that would set him apart as royalty, but as the month has gone on most have become aware of who he is.

Does Poins know? He is being very forward if he does. Falstaff is as familiar with Hal as his dog but no one else at the inn has ever dared do the same.

“I have means,” Hal says, deciding now that he would pass the word around that Edward Poins should be told nothing about him, should he ask. The degree of curiosity ought to answer Hal’s question.

For now, though, Hal has more urgent business with Poins. Business that might take them upstairs to Falstaff’s lodgings, which is the only bed Hal can possibly get Poins into tonight. What he’ll do there, he’s not sure, but he can see Poins has a mouth, and it’s a pretty shaped one at that.

Poins chews his lip and asks, “What did Falstaff say about me?”

“That your name is Edward Poins—”

“Ned,” Poins murmurs.

“Ned Poins. And that you are only a second son.”

“Nothing else?”

“If you know Falstaff -and he knows you— you know he lies and that any man with wits more than a child or a dotard would fail to believe him. It matters not what he said.”

“I would still like to hear it.”

Hal isn’t about to call Ned a thief, not on Falstaff’s worthless word, nor would he like to be proved right about this man. “Rest assured it was disagreeable and that I chided him for it. I will have no more of him tonight. Perhaps you can recommend some other company for the evening?”

Poins hesitates but eventually says, “You’ll not catch anything with me.” Delivered another way, the words would definitely be an invitation. But they’re not delivered playfully nor with confidence. Falstaff has done for this lad without saying a word to him.

Hal waits to respond, making sure he gains Poins’s eye and holds it in his gaze before he speaks. “Only your meaning, I hope. Do I catch that?”

“I mean nothing at all by it.”

“Nothing?”

“No.”

“Now I am the one who thinks that is a pity.”

Hal extends his leg beneath the table and finds Poins’s, but as he attempts to touch him Poins pulls away, turning his body to take himself out of reach of even Hal’s long legs.

The mood is gone. All the promise of just minutes before is lost because Falstaff will not let Hal have a good thing without him having a part of it and he is not the sort of man who wants a part of Ned Poins.

“Perhaps you’ll change your mind when I buy you a drink,” Hal says, waving a hand toward the server, Francis.

“I have one.”

“But I insist.”

Hal’s untying the purse from his belt and holding it in the air for Francis, and Ned, to see. It is an ordinary brown leather pouch, but the toggle is pure gold.

“I don’t want your drink,” Ned mutters, “Put your money away.”

Hal drops it onto the table with a heavy thunk. “I’ll leave it here.”

“Put it in on your belt before someone picks it up.”

“Why don’t you look after it for me?”

Poins reaches across and takes the purse, then flings it back at him. “Go back to your friends and leave me be.”

“Am I too tempting?”

“You’re too obvious,” Ned growls. “Now go. Go!”

Hal takes his purse and leaves, passing Falstaff and his friends without comment on the way out. He stops Francis, however, and tells him that Ned Poins is not to know who he is. Francis gets a coin for spreading the word and another to take Ned a drink. Then Hal returns to Westminster, thinking all the while about what he might have had.


	2. Chapter Two

Chapter Two

Ned knows the Boar’s Head is no place for him, but somehow his feet always bring him back each new moon when it’s too dark to see who comes and goes in the streets, or what they do there.

He should not have gone last night, but he did and now it is done, and by God’s sweet light that boy, that _man_ , he supposes, was so perfectly formed he can hardly think of anything else now. He may think of nothing else ever again. He will certainly think of no one else, not when his cock’s in his hand.

The man’s face wasn’t beautiful but he was clean and clear skinned, and he was tall and broad. He had considerable means, which suggested his build was shaped on training grounds and battlefields rather than in a field or a forge, soldiery being no shame for a gentleman. Yes, he was fine enough to look upon.

It was a pity then that he surrounded himself with curs. But he couldn’t be all bad. Ned found he did not mind him so much when Francis brought him sack—the good stuff too. If only he’d brought a name along with it, Ned might have liked the man all the more.

And so he finds himself back at the Boar’s Head for the second night in a row. He’s met with small beer and closed lips, and his young man, who is drunk out of his five senses. Ned takes a seat and waits for him, only to find the lad’s sack-sotted chatter rises in volume like the gossip of Fama until he roars accusations about the fidelity of Falstaff’s mother and a scuffle breaks out.

The next morning Ned promises himself he’ll not set foot in the Boar’s Head for a month, sick of frustration and all too aware of his already meagre funds dwindling. But he finds his way there, promising himself that this will be the last night. Until his father gives him his allowance, at any rate.

The atmosphere is much changed. It is quiet now, the talk only a low murmur. His man is sat on a stool in the corner, head back as he leans against a post. He looks exhausted, as if he has not left the tavern since the night they met.

Ned isn’t about to disturb him. Let the poor bastard sleep off his excess. Next month, if the lad still has the means to be drinking in the Boar’s Head, they might meet again.

He’s turning to leave when Francis spots him and limps over, shouting, “Don’t leave Master Poins, sir! I’ve a drink for you, sir!”

In the quiet of the tavern the shout is enough to wake the dead. Ned throws a look to his lad who is peeling himself away from the wall, rubbing his head.

“Thank you, Francis,” the lad calls. He rises slowly, steadying himself on the table just the way Falstaff had to that first night, as wobbly on his legs as a new-born calf. Ned isn’t about to go to him, knowing that table will soon be surrounded by the fat knight and his cronies.

“Poins,” the lad says, smiling weakly at him as he slouches over. “Francis told me we would not see you again for another month, yet here you are.”

“I was here last night too.”

“Indeed. I noticed you but you didn’t look to me.”

“I didn’t need to look. You’re a loud drunk. I knew you were here.”

The lad grins now, no shame at the obnoxious behaviour he’d displayed the night before. “I thought you’d noticed me,” he says. He rubs his eyes again and yawns, then asks, “Will you be my company tonight?”

“You don’t need company. You need to go home.”

“I am home.”

“Go to your mother.”

“My mother is dead.”

Ned’s mother was long since dead too, so he didn’t bother to commiserate with the young man. “What of your father?”

At this the lad laughs bitterly, then cringes as he brings a hand to his head again. “Long live him,” he says, with a tone too forceful to be careless but lacking the true vigour of anger. He puts a heavy hand on Ned’s shoulder and moments later is leaning against him. “Please stay with me. I’m exceeding weary and I could use gentler company than I’ve had.”

“I cannot. Your friends do not like me and I do not like them. I would not be welcome at their table.”

“Then I will have to sit here,” the lad says, turning and dropping down onto the nearest stool. “And now you have no reason not to join me.”

Francis arrives with two pots of beer and places them on the table, smiling his simple smile at them both. Ned looks at the drink, then at the lad who is so keen to have his company. Ned might regret refusing him.

“One drink,” he says, the way his father had done when asked for a sip of expensive wine from his cup when Ned was a boy. “And only if you give me your name.”

This makes the lad hesitate, but only for a moment.

“My name is Hal.”


	3. Chapter Three

Chapter Three

Ned Poins proves himself to be quite good company. He’s quiet and easy to talk to. He listens, which is more than any other man here does unless Hal is shouting profanities, though they pretend to hang on his every word. If they met somewhere else, Hal would not be ashamed to acknowledge Ned.

Perhaps they could meet somewhere else. The tennis court or another inn—one without Falstaff and his gang of idiots, thieves and whores. Somewhere that did not double as a brothel.

But Hal had come here because he could go no lower, and he’d looked for more than even this place could offer. There were rooms here, however, and Hal got the impression that if he took Ned upstairs everyone would know and no one would care, not really. It is the sort of place shame refused to exist. He has to be careful not to get too comfortable here.

With that thought, Hal shifts his stool a few inches nearer to Ned and brings their heads closer together. He’s still tired, but the company, and the promise of what he might get later from Ned, keep him alert.

All seems well until Falstaff ambles over, belly swaying before him, and offers to share a drink or a girl or a joke—whichever Hal desires.

“I’ll have none of you tonight,” Hal says, waving him away indulgently and signalling to Francis that he should fill Falstaff’s cup.

When he turns his attention back to Poins he finds the mood has shifted again. The lad is staring into his pot with a look of distaste.

“Something wrong?” Hal asks him.

Poins shoots a look across at Falstaff and says, “Do you honestly enjoy the company of that fat fool?”

“Most of the time, yes, though he is the strangest fellow I know.”

“I hate him.”

“Why?”

Poins takes a sparing sip of his drink, as if he’s purging a bad taste from his mouth. “Sir John Falstaff was eager to be my friend until he realised I had nothing to give him. When _I_ needed _his_ help one night he abandoned me altogether.”

Hal wanted to believe better of Falstaff—as a fellow soldier, he’d trusted him without thought on their first meeting, though it was clear Falstaff hadn’t soldiered for many a year. “I’ve nothing for him either,” he says, aware that he’d kept Falstaff well lubricated over the preceding month.

“Does he know that?” Poins snorts, watching Francis fill Falstaff’s cup.

“I hope so. What do you think I could give him?”

“A river of sack for him to drown in. I saw your purse, remember, and no doubt he has too. He’ll drink with you every night until its empty if you let him. Then he’ll move on to the next person foolish enough to buy him a drink and when you need him he’ll be long gone.”

Across the room, Falstaff raises his cup to Hal and then takes a long draw on his drink. Something in his manner leaves Hal a little sick, though he won’t show it. There’s an equally strong feeling of warmth, affection even, for the man. He gets things from Falstaff he’s never had from his own father.

Hal would rather not think about his father the king, or Falstaff for that matter. That way loneliness and misery lie. He’d much rather lie with Poins.

“I have a room upstairs,” Hal says, thinking that Falstaff could lend him his bed and do him a favour for the first time. “It might be easier to talk there. No distractions.”

Poins tongue darts out, lips moistening. Oh, what a pretty mouth to plunder that would be. The pink lips, flushed cheeks, those big eyes looking up at him, heavy lidded and hot.

“I don’t think...” Poins words trail off. Then he says, “I’m sorry, you’re not worth the risk of a beating. I will have to know you better first.”

“I plan to know you very well upstairs.”

“I’m sure you do but I need to trust you. Who are you? Who are your family? No one will tell me a thing.”

Hal smiles, pleased that his future subjects will keep a prince’s secret, and that Poins has cared enough to ask around. “I’m just passing through,” Hal says with a shrug.

“From and to where?”

“Youth and manhood. Now, who are you, Ned Poins?”

Poins is still hesitant but when Hal holds his gaze he grows confident and replies, “I am a man in search of some sweetness.”

“You think you’ll find it here?”

“Sometimes I do.”

“How often?”

“Three times in as many years. Different men.”

“And that is sweetness?”

“It is all I’ve known.”

Hal has had better during his school days, young Scroop being a tentative but tender lover before they were separated, but nothing so good since he became a man. A fumbled fuck in the dark with a lad who died in battle the next day, and the mouth of a kitchen boy who was mysteriously absent from the household after their one hasty encounter, that was all he had to show for years of aching for the hard bodies of men.

The ache is more of a throb now as he looks across at the young man who might yet prove amenable. Poins really is beautiful in the sort of way only men are and Hal could no more think of having a girl now when there is such a prize waiting for him.

“Will you be here tomorrow night?” Hal asks.

“No.” Poins chews his lip and looks into the bottom of his cup. “I’ve some business to attend to. I don’t know when I will return. I usually come in once a month, but I can’t promise when.”

“Then it must be tonight,” Hal says, determined he’ll have the lad one way or another rather than lose him to chance. “I won’t hurt you. And if you want paying—”

“No, I don’t want paying,” Poins snaps. “I’m a gentleman, not a whore.”

“I would you were, this would be much easier. Come upstairs with me. We’ll be quick. Hands will do if you’re not ready.”

“I told you, you’re not worth a beating—from you or any other man here.”

“That’s a pity. I’d been thinking you might be.”

They stare across the table at each other and Hal wonders if he really is hearing the lad’s refusal. His looks tell otherwise, and he is sure Poins wants him every bit as much. There’s a craving for intimacy on his face, a look that tells Hal he is understood. They want the same thing, if only for a few blissful minutes.

But Hal won’t press a man who has refused. He knows all too well that the royal position is a precarious one and men must be respected if he wants to rule them. That applies here too. “Promise me you’ll come back,” he says. “Give me a reason to keep drinking in this pig sty for at least another month.”

“It depends on my finances.”

“Hang the money, I’ll keep you in sack.”

“No you won’t,” Poins says, rising. “If you want a whore or a hanger on, you’ve plenty here already to choose from. If you want me, you’ll have to earn my trust.” He looks back as he leaves and there is the smallest smile playing upon his lips.

Hal has his reason.


	4. Chapter Four

Chapter Four

The month that followed was longer than the strictest lent, but Ned managed to keep his distance from the Boar’s Head. Despite numerous questions around Eastcheap he has still learned nothing about Hal, and as he approaches the tavern door he knows he might yet be disappointed. The lad had no doubt pissed his funds up the wall and crawled back to his father’s home, begging forgiveness for his profligacy. Ned was prepared to never see Hal again.

But entering the inn, he spot’s Hal immediately, slumped on the floor, soaked with sack in every way Ned can imagine. The bastard son of a whore is too far gone for anything and if Ned were a colder man, he’d turn away and leave him to marinate. But, though he’s annoyed, he can see Hal needs help and no one else is giving it to him.

The atmosphere tonight is raucous. Merry music plays while the regulars gambol in a drunken dance. Falstaff, his belly swaying, holds two pots above his head, but he is smart, not a drop falls from his cup. Hal cannot have been so careful.

Ned hurries to Hal and kneels beside him. “Are you all right?”

Hal turns his face up slowly and looks closely at him. “Ned?” he slurs. “Ned! Ned Poins! You have finally come back to me.”

He reaches his hand out and Ned takes it, pulling as if to help Hal up but the lad is surprisingly heavy. There’s muscle beneath that wet shirt.

“Come on,” Ned says, shifting position to get beneath Hal’s arm so he can really get his back into helping the lad up from the floor. This time he’s able to move Hal enough that he can get himself to a wobbly stand, though Hal leans heavily on Ned still. Ned hadn’t considered what he’d do with him now they were both up, but it would not be anything he’d hoped.

Hal’s leg’s buckle slightly before Ned can decide where to move to. He has to take more of the lad’s weight and the physical proximity only serves to remind him that this is not how things ought to be. Then Hal leans in close and whispers, “I have waited for you, you know. The good women who work here are every bit as honourable as they were when you last visited.”

“Still whores, then?” Ned mutters. He’s looking around for an empty stool, preferably by a wall, but there’s nowhere to put the lad. For a moment he considers taking him to his own home, but his brother will be furious if he turns up with an insensible stranger who is sick with drink.

“I want you,” Hal says. “I have been here every night for want of you. I have wanted to press your thighs together. I have wanted to... to...” He frowns. “Whatever it was, I have wanted it a lot.”

“Well, you seem to have been well occupied while I’ve been away. You’re rank with stale beer and... is that piss?”

Hal gestures an arm out wildly, as if he is trying to shrug but has forgotten which part of the body he should use. “It’s in the sack.”

Ned’s tasted enough of it that he cannot discount the possibility. It matters not, anyway. Hal needs to lay down, and if it’s somewhere with a pisspot then all the better.

“Francis!” Ned shouts, shouldering all the weight as Hal’s legs give way again. “Francis!”

Francis limps over and without having to be asked he shoves his shoulder under Hal’s free armpit, taking much of the slack from Ned.

“Thank you, good man,” Ned says, and he means it. “Hal needs to lay down. Help me get him to a room.”

Francis mumbles assent and the pair of them carry Hal, who moves his legs though he puts no weight on them.

“Ned,” Hal says, a hand ruffling his hair. “Pretty Ned Poins. Not like the rough folk in here. Lovely Ned. Sweet Ned. Come to my bed, Ned?”

Ned looks to Francis but the server doesn’t seem to heard a word. That’s discretion, Ned thinks, not lack of hearing, and Ned makes up his mind that what he would have spent on drink will go in Francis’ pocket instead.

They’re at the bottom of the stairs when Falstaff lumbers in front of them both, blocking their route with only his width. Ned wonders how much sack would be required to inebriate Jack Falstaff. Three barrels of the stuff, perhaps.

“Put down the boy,” Falstaff hisses. ”I’ll not let you lay your hands upon him or his purse.”

“I’ll not touch either, but he needs to lie down.” When Falstaff doesn’t step aside, Ned looks about for further help. “Mistress Quickly!” he calls, eyes lighting on the owner of the establishment.

A buxom beauty, she waddles over to them, her tits spilling out of her dress as she moves. Falstaff glances to her chest as he sits himself down on the stairs, smiling lecherously at the sight. “My lady,” he says with a deferential nod.

She winks at the old bastard and then offers Ned half a smile. It was by her good grace that Ned was able to drink in the Boar’s Head as she had always protected him from her crueller patrons, no matter what she might have thought of him. And Ned didn’t think she thought ill of him at all. Only once had they crossed words and Ned had learnt a lesson about life and the good mistress. That was the last time Ned took money a lover offered him.

“Well, Ned Poins,” she says, looking him up and down and then frowning at Hal who grins like a loon at her. “What have you got here?”

“This man’s not well and needs to lie down. Where is his room?”

“He doesn’t have one. Sometimes he sleeps in Sir John here’s lodgings if he hasn’t made it back home.”

Falstaff opens his arms magnanimously and beams at Hal. “Hal, my dear boy, you are welcome to my humble room as always. And you Ned, you are to be thanked. I’m sure Hal will stand you a drink. Put it on my account, lady, the prince--” he hesitates, “this prince among men will reimburse me, won’t you?”

He looks hopefully at Hal who completely ignores him.

“Stay with me, Ned,” Hal slurs. “Stay the night with me. Please.”

Ned’s face must be redder than a robin’s breast. It certainly feels hot and uncomfortable, even if he doesn’t think he’ll get a hiding from a fat old liar who none could ever believe, a brothelmisstress, and her simple-minded server.

“I can’t stay all night.”

“Yes, you can,” Hal says. “I’m ordering you to.”

Must be a first son, Ned thinks wearily. His own brother is quick to throw out orders whether or not they are needed or wanted, but he has obligations Ned does not.

Ned has long cursed his light purse, it being a symptom of his place in the world, but at least he need not marry, nor worry about siring an heir or protecting what funds the family has. He cares only to stay alive to the next day and live with some small pleasure, even without purpose. There is the family name to think of, but he need not worry about his own prospects.

It annoys him immensely that Jack Falstaff seems to live for the same. The whoreson hauls himself up from his seat on the stair, shaking his head.

“Hal, my boy. You don’t know what you’re saying,” Falstaff simpers, “but you may be sure I still have your best interest at heart when I tell you I will stand guard over you all night if I have too. There’s no need for Poins to trouble himself.”

Hal hasn’t taken his eyes from Ned, though they are drooping heavily. “I want you to stay.”

“All right,” Ned found himself saying, though he feels anything but. He is aware of Falstaff’s protests but he can’t focus on them. The only thing he can hear clearly is the beating of his own heart. The only thing he can see is Hal’s face, so open and earnest. Hal is very drunk. He’d have to be to be so brave.

“You can sleep in my room tonight, Sir John,” Mistress Quickly says, winking at Ned but putting her hands on Falstaff’s meaty shoulders.

Falstaff gins. “Well, if you are being generous…”

“I don’t know if I’m being that generous,” she says, holding out her hand to him to lead him away from the stairs so they can pass.

Francis helps get Hal up to the door and then leaves them be, mumbling something about the pisspot being empty if Hal needed it.

Hal doesn’t appear to need it. He smells like he is long past the stage of puking up whatever swill he has in his stomach, and even further past pissing out the rest.

The room is small and empty but for a bed in the corner. The dregs of a fire burns in the fireplace and it’s warm and lit well enough that Ned can see what they’re doing.

Ned kicks the door closed and gets Hal the last few steps to the bed. The sheets are filthy, so he doesn’t worry about stripping them, and he lets Hal collapse on top of it without care or ceremony, for the truth is that he is annoyed with the lad more than he shows. They’d made a promise last time, or so he’d thought, even if it was unspoken, and Hal is unable to fulfil it.

Hal looks up at him, a tired smile on his face. “I’ve waited for you,” he says, then yawns and closes his eyes.

Ned mutters, “Indeed,” and wonders whether or not to join Hal on the bed or sleep on the floor. He won’t leave him, not after he had agreed to stay, but he won’t touch him either, not when he’s like this.

“I’ve waited,” Hal murmurs.

“You said.”

“I’ve wanted for you.” His eyes are still closed now but he’s smiling.

Perhaps it’s the low light, but he looks boyish and beautiful to Ned. “Have you really wanted for me?” Ned asks, finding himself taking the bed rather than the floor. Hal will be rank wherever Ned lies down.

Hal opens his eyes and looks at him. “Sweet. Sweetness. Kiss me.”

“No—”

But Hal rolls over and kisses him. It’s not quick, not forceful, and Ned would have had time to stop him if he’d wanted to. Instead he lets Hal steal the kiss, and though he smells like a privy and tastes bitter as a crabapple, it’s pure pleasure for a moment.

It will be better still in the morning. “No,” Ned whispers, pushing Hal gently onto his back. “Close your eyes. Sleep it off.”

“But I waited for you.”

“Then you can wait a little longer.”

Hal is asleep only moments later, a noisy and noisome sleep but Ned can live with it. He lies back on the bed and hopes his sister will not worry and that his brother won’t look for him in the morning.


	5. Chapter Five

Chapter Five

Hal hurts. God, he hurts in head and his throat and his stomach. He’s curled on Jack’s bed, sick with drink and ready to swear himself to a life of restraint. He’ll abdicate the throne and become a priest, and not one who drinks and keeps lovers, oh no, he will be ascetic to the end. He’ll never touch a drop of sack save Christ’s blood, and will only partake of the smallest beers, even if it is a feast day. No, he will be all goodness if the sickness and pain will let him be for but half an hour.

He must move, however. He must empty his bladder, and possibly his stomach. He must have something to eat and drink, and he must find a servant and send them out to acquire fresh raiments or find a washerwoman to clean his. And a bath. He needs to visit the baths if the Mistress has none here.

He needs to do something. He can’t return to Westminster, not like this, though frankly he would rather not face his father in any state. The old man doesn’t understand how it feels to be heir apparent. He never had this unique pressure on him throughout his life, and they’ve argued a good deal about how a boy ought to prepare to become a king.

So. The bucket, the bath, the boy snoring behind him—

The boy? He hopes it’s a boy, though he cannot remember a thing from last night. For a moment he hopes Ned Poins is his companion, then quickly dashes the thought. He’d not have Poins see or smell him like this.

Slowly he wriggles his body around, mindful of his pounding head and weak stomach.

Ah, it is Poins. Well, nothing to be done about it now but find out how bad it was. He is sure it is very bad indeed.

Poins snores next to him. Not the loud braying drill of a man who has drunk too much and passed out, just the gentle snuffle of one who likes his bed. He looks peaceful, which proves a relief to Hal, who is strangely uneasy at the thought of disappointing Poins.

It must have been alright if Poins is still here, unless of course he knows Hal’s secret. He probably does by now so that’ll be the end of it before it has ever begun. Pity really.

He’s thirsty, but Hal waits for Poins to wake, drawing the moment out a little longer. Waking in a bed with a man he likes is a treat so rare he almost doesn’t know what to make of it. But he’s not scared, nor does his blood pump with the thrill of it. No, this is a simpler pleasure. This is peace.

In the next room the bed begins to creak, arrhythmically. Poins stirs at the noise, opening his eyes to find Hal watching him. What must he be thinking, waking in a dirty bed in a brothel with a befouled Prince of England?

It takes a moment before Poins is fully conscious of his surroundings and bedfellow. Then he sits up suddenly.

“Hal,” he says, then says the name again. “Hal. Hal. You’re awake?”

“Yes.”

“Good. Do you remember last night?”

“None of it.” Hal wishes he could. This would be easier if he did for now he has the uncertainty of wondering what he, or anyone else, might have said about who he really is. Poins is a gentleman, and therefore the only other man in the Boar’s Head who has a voice that might be listened to. It is better he doesn’t know. King Richard was said to be unmanly and he was overthrown. And old King Edward shared Hal’s very vice and ended unhappily. No, it is better that those true gentlemen who know who he is cannot confirm what he is, and those that know what he is don’t know his title.

“Did we drink a lot?”

“I had not a drop.”

“None? What a bore you are,” Hal mutters, thinking it had been too much to hope Poins would have forgotten the lot too.

The lad is affronted. “I can drink as deeply as any man, I assure you, and would have done given the chance, but you couldn’t stay like that, not with your purse.”

“You think they’d rob me?”

“With any luck. Otherwise they might rob you and kill you.”

Every man in the Boar’s Head knows that injury to Hal’s person will bring swifter and bloodier vengeance than they can imagine, and it gives Hal a bit of hope. Perhaps Poins doesn’t know... He would like to remind Poins that he has coped perfectly well without him for the two months he has frequented the establishment but that might greatly reduce his chance of even a fumbled hand fuck. Instead he says, “You have my thanks; and one day I’d like to see you drink deeply. Not right now thought. I’ve not the stomach for it.”

“Next month, maybe,” Poins replies as he lies down again.

“So long?”

“I cannot spend my life waiting on you, or my entire allowance drinking in here.”

Casual cruelty has never sounded so sweet to Hal. “You still don’t judge me worth the risk?”

“No, I’m sure now that you are. Your tongue was looser than Doll’s laces. I thank God that the inn was so loud none but those we spoke with could hear you.”

Hal sighs. He did the drinking, he can only blame himself, and yet this feels like someone else’s fault. He runs his hand over his tired eyes. “They all know. I never hid it from them.”

“Falstaff seemed to think I was bringing you up here to take advantage of your state, but Quickly didn’t seem surprised.”

“She wouldn’t.”

“And Francis, he heard you when you were at your least discreet.”

“Heard what, exactly?”

Poins reddens, a broad smile growing on his cheeks. “‘Sweet Ned, come to my bed,’ or some such silly little nonsense. Let’s hope he knows better to wait for some coin from us before he decides to talk.”

“That’s what I was saying?”

“Your looks and words dripped with honey even as your shirt dripped with sack.”

Hal has already bought Francis’ silence once, he’s not worried about what the server might say to anyone about what he heard. Quickly and Falstaff too, they’re clever enough to know what is good for them and he’ll keep them well. If they talk he is powerful enough he may call them liars, and Doll can vouch he can perform for women. That could have been worse.

The pounding in Hal’s head doesn’t seem so bad anymore. “So, you know my secret,” he says. “I have been waiting for you.”

“Yes, you mentioned waiting a lot.”

A knock at the door interrupts them. They’re both clothed and lie apart so Hal calls, “Enter!”

Quickly opens the door and bustles in with a bowl and spoon in her hands. “Morning, young sirs. I was bringing Sir John his sop and thought to ask if you’d like something.” The irregular knocks next door are still coming and she smiles at them both awkwardly. “I’ve a minute to spare before he gets his. No more than that.”

That’s a generous estimation, Hal thinks. He eyes the bowl, however, and feels his stomach turn. “I need a great many things this morning but not sop. I’ll never touch sack again.”

“I’ll fetch you both a bit of this morning’s bread and some ale then,” she says with the tenderness of a mother before heading back to the corridor to wait on Falstaff, shutting the door behind her.

“And do you know a wash-house nearby?” Hal calls after her. “And a bathhouse?”

“I do. I’ll take you,” Poins says.

Hal sets aside the urge to make him swear so, but Poins is right there on the bed beside him, and it has been such a long month, and now it finally seems he may get what he wants.

“May I call you friend now, Poins?”

“You may call me Ned.”

“One better.”

Hal reaches for Ned and pulls the lad to him so they are flush together. He’s leaning in for a kiss when Ned turns his face away.

“Off. You are still rank. Let’s clean you up first. I want you, but not like this.”

“You are a gentleman,” Hal chuckles, a little offended but pleased by Ned’s desire not to please him, frustrating though it may be. “You’ve standards.”

“Unlike yourself.”

Hal will one day be a king. He cannot afford to be fussy now. “I’ve slept in worse places than this, though I’ll grant you my own sheets are cleaner. But it matters not. This is what we have.” He smiles at Ned. “I know I smell like a privy. But I still wish you would kiss me.”

Ned takes Hal’s hand and raises it up to his lips. He hesitates a teasing moment but carefully bestows the wished for kiss. “There,” he murmurs.

There it is. It was worth the wait.


	6. Chapter Six

Chapter Six

“Here’s a few more things for you.”

Ned gingerly hands the bundle of Hal’s clothes to his sister Nell, careful not to wipe his hands on his own clothes afterward. He will wash them at the bathhouse.

“Heavens!” Nell says, tossing them toward their maid Mary. “The smell of them. They need burning, they’re rank with disease.”

Ned would normally agree with his sister—anything that smells rotten cannot be healthy—but in this circumstance he knows better. “I’ve a friend who drank too deeply last night, that’s all, there’s nothing to fear from him. He is a gentleman in perfect health. Quite perfect.”

“Is that why you didn’t come home?” Nell says under her breath. She glances towards Mary who, like all good servants, acts as if she has not heard a thing.

“You noticed?”

“Hard not to when Geoffrey talked of nothing else at breakfast.”

There will be trouble, Ned knows that well enough. There has been trouble before but it has never led to anything more than stern words, warnings not to shame the family, and exhortations to marry or join the clergy. They don’t beat him, but he knows they won’t revenge him if someone else does.

“Please, just have Mary wash the clothes and then bring them to the bathhouse on Catte Street. I’ll speak to Geoffrey tonight.”

She frowns at him but soon agrees when he promises to return home that afternoon with a decent explanation and a pot of honey for the table.

Ned wonders if Hal has a brother looking for a wife and if he can persuade hisbrother he was hoping to make a match for Nell rather than himself. He needs something he can offer as appeasement.

It is not far to the bathhouse, though if it were an hour’s walk Ned would happily have taken it. He leaves his sister, making her promise to send Mary within the hour with the clothes and assuring her that it matters not if they’re still wet or even stained, so long as they’ve had a soak.

Now his head is full of thoughts of Hal, who had been left naked, stewing in his steaming tub of fresh water. Ned had allowed himself only a brief glance at the lad’s body, noting the thick scars on Hal’s chest: the marks of a soldier who has seen battle, Ned is sure. There were fresh bruises too, though they had to be from tavern brawls if Hal’s story about visiting the Boar’s Head every night for months is true. It is as likely, however, that he has tumbled drunkenly down a flight of stairs recently.

Whatever, the truth of it, Ned may never know. He knows Hal’s given name, nothing beyond that, but there’s comfort in the anonymity their situation affords. He needn’t fear Hal. He needn’t see Hal ever again, though Hal knows him as a Poins. The lad arrived from nowhere and may one day go back there so it is best to make the most of the companionship while he can.


	7. Chapter Seven

Chapter Seven

The bathhouse is busy enough that there’s no private rooms, though Hal did ask. In fact he did everything but give his rank and still could not procure a room. The only privacy afforded to him is the linen sheets that hang around his tub, and though none can see his bare skin, he can hear his fellow patrons bathing around him. Someone farts in their tub, others are chattering away, male and female voices swapping gossip, one man is even singing. He can hear lovers too, or at least men and their whores.

He’s not aroused. The warm water is too relaxing and he’d rather sleep than rut right now, though not here. When he’s home in his bed he will sleep for a week, if his father will let him.

His father won’t let him. He has missed the morning council, his study hour, and won’t be there for sword practice this afternoon. If he’s not home by nightfall the guard will be out looking for him and then it won’t matter what Ned does or does not know, he’ll have the truth soon enough.

Hal’s eyes are closed when he senses the curtain move, feeling the faint breeze of it cool the steam-warmed skin of his cheek. “Is that you, Ned?” he asks, unwilling to open his eyes if he can maintain the thought of his young man even a second longer, fearing it may be an unwelcome guest.

“Who would you have it be?” Ned asks.

“No one else.” Hal opens his eyes and sees the lad standing over him and staring quiet openly at his nakedness beneath the water. “Yours is the only company I’ve wished for since the night we met.”

Ned is already a little flushed, a state which others might put down to the steamy waters of the baths but that Hal likes to think is his own doing. “You are a sweet rogue,” Ned whispers, eyes roving across Hal’s chest as he leans back in the water.

When Ned looks directly at Hal’s cock, Hal murmurs, “I am neither sweet nor roguish.”

“Then what are you?”

“I’m a man who’ll rule you fairly. And you, lovely Ned, you are fairly fit to be ruled.”

Hal’s cock rises up and Ned watches it intently for a moment. Gradually he begins to roll up his sleeve but Hal stops him with an offer to share.

“You’re not my servant,” he says. “If we share the cost you’ve every right to climb in with me while the water’s hot.”

Ned is soon naked and clambering in with Hal. His body is smaller, less defined than Scroop’s was. When Hal gave Scroop his virginity he’d been in awe of the man’s muscular frame. Even the serving lad, Hal’s last conquest, was better built, being fattened by the palace kitchen and muscled by fetching and carrying the heavy platters that grace a kings table. But Ned is slim, lithe. He’s malleable too, able to get as many inches of his skin against Hal’s own as he leans back against him, arse nestling against Hal’s cock. Oh to be inside those perfect, pert buttocks, to have Ned Poins so well the lad would be more deliriously drunk on Hal’s cock than either of them could ever become on Quickly’s watery wineskins.

Ned presses down on him, stretches his neck to the left so that he might receive a kiss to the right. Hal bestows it as if it were the royal touch, as if he could cure all Ned’s ills, should he have any, with just a press of his lips. The second kiss, however, that is one designed to infect Ned with a disease that may one day prove fatal to them both.

Ned’s skin is soft, white, clean. Everything about him shows his status as a gentleman, including the shiver that marks him out as more sexually inexperienced than he’d previously admitted. Hal’s sure the lad has been fucked a few times and he may have gotten his cock wet himself, but he’s nervous now in this place that could cost him his reputation as well as his life.

Hal gropes around beneath the water and finds what he wants standing as tall as it can. Hal is big, thicker bodied, tanned from camp life and scarred by battle. He’s got a bigger prick too, thinner, however, than Ned’s fat stub of a cock, which is handful enough now he’s playing with it but not intimidating. Hal thinks he will take it inside him one day, if Ned offers. It couldn’t hurt any more than Scroop’s did.

There is only a linen cloth between them and discovery so they need to be discreet. Hal raises a silencing finger to Ned’s lips as he begins a careful stroke beneath the water with his other hand. Ned’s mouth is hot, the breath wet and his breathing heavy. He kisses Hal’s finger a few times, licks the digit until Hal slips it into his mouth.

Ned may be small but he feels heavy against Hal now. His breathing becomes louder and soon Hal withdraws his finger and covers Ned’s mouth with his hand to smother the pleasure so only he hears.

The water is dirty now but Hal doesn’t mind. When Ned shifts round to help Hal his seed floats beside them both. Hal swats at it, catching it in his hand and rubbing it to nothing between his fingers while Ned carefully tugs him off beneath the water. Hal grins at him all the while knowing he looks devil-sent rather than divinely endowed, though Ned seems delighted by what is divinely endowed to him.

Would this be different if Ned knew the truth of Hal’s situation? Hal wonders only briefly until Ned whispers, “My sweet honey rogue, my besotted, my tavern whore.” The last is uttered with such pleasure it sends a shiver through Hal that he almost fails to suppress. If Ned knows the truth, Hal can never be his whore. Whore’s demand payment, and Hal knows he would be the only one to hand out anything material worth having.

Services can only be repaid in kind right now and that should not change until it must. The day will, eventually come. Hal allows himself the pleasure of a love affair now for he knows it’ll all be gone soon enough.

“Say that again,” Hal whispers.

“My whore,” Ned says. “And I am yours. Soon we will make Quickly’s bed creak.”

The things they will do together... Hal thinks of them as he comes off.


	8. Chapter Eight

Chapter Eight

Ned feels taller as he strides up the garden path, as if Hal’s favour has added a few longed-for inches to his frame. He feels handsome too, or at the very least in possession of some redeeming qualities alongside the treats he carries, the honey and sweets he promised to Nell. It’ll hurt less when Geoffrey next calls him the runt of the family.

At the door he is met by Nell who must have seen him from the window. She’s hushes him before he can speak and ushers him into the buttery, murmuring she’d be glad to have his help fetching the ale.

It’s dark in there, with only a small window to light the cramped space. Ned looks around, wondering what they will eat and drink this evening. Meat, he hopes, something rich and sustaining.

“Honey as promised,” he says, putting the small pot into her right hand, “and sweets for the sweetest sister, courtesy of my friend.”

She takes the paper wrapped bundle and sniffs it. Its marchpaine, her favourite, and a rare treat in this house. She slips it into the bag on her waist and mutters, “I hope he’s worth it.”

“He was. He is. He’s from a good family.”

“Which one?”

Ned is a happy man and he doubts he could be happier for answering that question. Whoever Hal is, he’s a welcome lover and Ned trusts him now. “I don’t know, but he has the money and manners of a gentleman. You’d like him, I’m sure. One day I’ll introduce you to him.”

This doesn’t allay her fears. “If you tell me he wants a wife I’ll tell Geoffrey about the state of his laundry,” she hisses. Nell is not a girl eager for marriage, which is a position Ned supports.

“He’ll want one eventually, but he’s sewing his oats right now, I think, you needn’t worry. You’d better look elsewhere when you do decide to settle down. Perhaps he has a brother.”

“He could have ten brothers for all I care.” She turns, to open the door for them to leave, then she says, “Ned, be careful, won’t you?”

“Why should I need to be?”

“Please. Just be careful.” She’s out the door a moment later, leaving him alone.

The solitude doesn’t last. He meets his brother in their shared bedchamber and mumbles a greeting. Geoffrey is sat at their small table writing a letter. He looks up and places his quill down carefully. “Where were you last night?”

Ned is tempted to turn the question on Geoffrey. He was the one who first took Ned to the Boar’s Head, and he would no doubt still be visiting had he not been afflicted by terrible sores shortly after their visit. Since then he’d been chaste as the pope is supposed to be and he had little sympathy for Ned’s desire for low company.

“I’ve been in the Boar’s Head again. Drinking.”

“You can drink here.”

“Ah, but sometimes the mistress is in her cups. If she likes you she’ll give you the good French wine for the cost of the cheap English one. You should come with me next time.” He would not have added the last if he weren’t entirely confident Geoffrey would not.

“So, who were you with that you were kept out all night?” Geoffrey asks. “Father was worried, you know. We nearly went to the watch for you.”

“I was with a friend.”

“A man?”

“I’m not friends with the whores.”

“No,” Geoffrey said, shifting in the chair uncomfortably. “You promised, Ned, after the last time, you said it wouldn’t happen again.”

Ned feels his face burning. Last time they discussed this, Geoffrey had found him beaten and defeated and he’d gotten no sympathy, only a lecture about what this would do to their father’s already ill health or Nel’s chances for a good marriage. “Nothing happened last night,” Ned snaps, knowing that is the truth as he gives it, even if today is another matter. “Hal was sotted-sick so I took him to his room and stayed with him for fear of seeing him robbed or left with lungs full of puke. You can ask any man in the tavern. You can ask him yourself. He’s a gentleman and his word is good.”

“Then let him answer for himself,” Geoffrey says, rising from his seat. “Fetch him here for supper.”

“Here?”

“I’m not against you having friends or company, but it should be the right sort. Normal, decent men. I don’t want you led into sin again.”

Hal has taken him there and back in the bathhouse, but he is a gentleman. He can feign the manners of a better behaved man, and Ned knows Geoffrey does not mind the drink, on occasion, only the fornication. It can be done, and it will mean seeing Hal again sooner than expected.

An hour later Ned stands in the Boar’s Head, heart filling with panic as his eyes dart around the room. Hal is nowhere to be seen, and the door to Falstaff’s room is open and occupied. Ned can see him pissing in a pot, carefree and careless.

Taking the stairs two at a time, Ned bounds to the door and the slows to knock on the frame even as he peers around the otherwise empty room.

“Where is Hal?” he asks innocently, as if he and Falstaff are the best of friends. Falstaff ignores him, so Ned adds, “I’ve an invitation for him. Dinner, with my father, brother and sister.”

“Your sister?” Falstaff says. Of course he’d be interested in any woman. Ned braces himself for the insult to her character and then Falstaff asks, “Pretty, is she? Or does she look like you? Either way you might have some competition for Hal’s interest.”

“I’ll not worry about losing a friend to his vanity. He likes you well enough and you are fat as butter and ugly as the cow they milked for it.”

“Far better cow’s milk than bull’s. But what would you know about that?”

The fat old fool chuckles to himself as he stumbles back to the bed to collapse upon it. “I’ve no idea where Hal is, I’m afraid. I’m sure he’d have told you where he lodges if he wanted to see you.”

“That means he’d rather not see you either then.”

Falstaff laughs again, harder this time, punctuating it with a phlegm-rattling cough. “I know perfectly well where he lives.”

“There’s a drink in it if you tell me.”

“The palace at Westminster.”

“Hang you then.” Ned storms from the room, done with Falstaff and wondering what on God’s green Earth he will say to his brother.


	9. Chapter Nine

Chapter Nine

Hal has had a bath and clean clothes, the full attention of a man he is eager to court, and on the way back to Westminster he had a decent meal at a respectable inn. Tired as he is, he’s presentable at least. The guards won’t think him a beggar and turn him away before he reaches the door.

He greets them by name—John and Jack—but slips past quietly. Bed first, let him have a little sleep before he sees anyone important. It’ll be easier to think then, and to take the lectures they’ll bestow. Few would openly criticise him, but many will offer advice he’d rather not hear.

Ten minutes later he is in his bed, still fully clothed, his tapestries blocking the sunlight from the windows. He’s dozing when the door opens and in steps his brother Lancaster, a cup in his hand and a servant carrying a ewer by his side.

“Don’t,” Hal groans, wincing as he rouses. “Let me sleep.”

“Sleep?” Lancaster mutters. “It’s the middle of the afternoon, Harry.”

Hal rolls over and pulls the blanket over himself. “I am exceeding weary.”

“You are exceeding stupid. Pull yourself together and get out of bed. You might be king one day. You can’t carry on like this.”

Lancaster is the one who needs reminding, not Hal. Tired he might be, but he puts all the authority he can muster into his voice as he says, “Spare me, please. I _will_ be king. You only hope I might.”

“I don’t want your crown but plenty of others always will. Don’t throw away our fathers hard work.”

“You’re right, it’s father’s work, not mine. England has no claim on me now, I toss nothing away. When the time comes, I’ll do as I must.”

Hal feels the bed shift beside him as Lancaster sits down upon it. His brother sounds tired as he asks, “Who will follow you then, after this? Who will think you worthy of your crown?”

“You will. And there will be others.”

“The fat reprobate John Falstaff, perhaps?”

Lancaster’s voice is thick with sarcasm and Hal offers it right back. “He’s known here in Westminster? I won’t tell him, he’d enjoy the infamy far too much even as he argued his honour.”

The bed moves again as Lancaster stands to leave, a physical reminder of the growing distance between himself and his family: his father’s court, too. Hal would gladly have his brother long gone and Ned on the bed instead. Ned in the bed. Now it is thought it has to happen, when the truth is finally out. It can’t last, but it would be worth having for a moment. Perhaps he could sneak the lad in...

“What about my other acquaintances?” Hal asks, rolling over now to find out what might be known about Ned in the palace. If they know of Falstaff then they know where Hal goes and what he does. They’re aware he likes inns, whorehouses, stews, maybe even that he likes Ned Poins’s doe eyes and pretty lips.

Lancaster is at the door. The ewer and cup are on the table and he’s on his way out, but he turns and gives Hal a disdainful look. “If you know worse than Falstaff, I’d like to hear about them.”

“Alas, no. But it matters not who I sup with now, does it? Our father’s men have grace enough to allow me to demonstrate my worthiness before they throw me to the wolves, and they will marvel that such a magnificent king came from such wayward youth. They’ll respect me more for it.”

“Believe what you will.”

Lancaster’s no more than a boy. Hal has seen the world and can’t expect him to understand it. He’s still swayed by the praise of his elders and their thinking, but he’s not yet experienced enough of life to see the truth of the situation as plainly as Hal does. The court wants a simple, sensible, reliable prince, but that doesn’t make a strong king. His father commands respect because he stepped up when he had to, played the part when Richard could not. He wasn’t born to be king, however, he is the usurper, tainted, the “traitor” who stood up to the king who saw fit to strip him of everything he had. He is great because of what he endured first.

Hal is born to the throne, but he’s damn certain that he will be seen stepping up to the mark too. They won’t praise the boy raised to be king, they’ll praise the man who became worthy, and to be that man against all odds will only give the story more value. More people will hear the tale than will ever meet the king.

“Is father here?” Hal asks. He’s the only man who could understand, though he may not like it.

“No,” Lancaster replies. He’s gone a moment later and Hal lets himself sink into the soft bed and sleep with thoughts of Ned by his side.


	10. Chapter Ten

Chapter Ten

If Ned had the means he’d have been at the Boar’s Head every night, but he does not. This worked in his favour, his father and brother preferring him home, but after a week he can’t resist any longer and returns to the inn allowing himself a single drink to nurse as long as he can. It will be worth it just to be where Hal has been.

Quickly assures him Hal will be here tonight, though she admits he has not stepped foot in the inn all week. She finds Ned a table and lets him sit an hour without touching his cup, no small feat as he is alone with nothing to occupy him, but he watches the door and waits until he’d have to spend more and then, when he is just about to stand to leave, Hal tumbles through the door, looking around for someone. For him.

“Ned!” he shouts above the noise of the inn. He’s out of breath and his hair is windswept. There’s a cap tucked into his waistband, but he’s not donned it. He looks like he’s had a hard ride.

Despite that he’s striding across the room, long legs, broad shoulders, and a wide smile making Ned’s heart pound. Stopping at the table he says, “You’re back so soon?”

It’s been a long week for Ned, he could hardly call it soon. “Are you disappointed?” he asks, more to tease than because he thinks it might be true. Hal’s expression is pure joy and even the dizzy feeling Ned’s experiencing can’t make him forget that.

“I don’t think you could disappoint me,” Hal replies. “Come upstairs.”

They’re moving through the inn only moments later, Hal shouting to Falstaff that he’s going to use his room. Falstaff looks uneasy but acknowledges him and Ned thinks they might quickly outstay their welcome, even if Hal is buying Falstaff’s drinks. The old knight won’t be generous forever.

Others are watching them but Hal doesn’t seem to notice or care. He’s loud here, used to being watched, no doubt, and somehow immune to the cruel looks and comments Ned has suffered.

In the room, Hal presses him into the back of the door and kisses him roughly. “Oh, Ned Poins, I’ve missed you. The thought of you has kept me up every night.”

“But not brought you here?”

Hal’s lips travel across Ned’s neck, his jaw, his ear. “Circumstances kept me away.”

“You couldn’t send word?”

“I told Quickly to send for me instead.”

Three things occur to Ned. First, that Quickly knows how to find Hal; second, that Hal cares more for his company than any other man in Eastcheap; and third, Hal came here tonight wanting more than to talk and drink.


	11. Chapter Eleven

Chapter Eleven

Hal kisses Ned on the lips this time, insistent now as he forces his tongue into Ned’s hot mouth. Either the lad will refuse him or melt in his arms. Ned feels taut against him, as if he’s about to push Hal off and spring away, but gradually, as Hal leans on him, lets him feel the weight of a man whose willing to fuck him here and now, he relaxes beneath the force, a passive participant in anything Hal wishes to do to him.

There’s a lot he would do given the opportunity. That mouth with the soft, pink lips he has dreamt so much of, oh that would be heaven. Then, wet with Ned’s spit, Hal would fuck his hole without mercy. The lad might have similar ideas, however, might think Hal belongs on his knees instead, and should it come to that, Hal would take it. A man ought to do everything worth doing at least once in his life.

One day, soon maybe. But tonight he wants so much to feel the moist heat of Ned because that has plagued his thoughts. He’s studied as he must, practiced swordplay every day, but not an hour went by when he failed to think about Ned.

He’s thinking about Ned now as he props him up, the soft, weak body pressed against the wall but with a hard steal jutting from his groin, beautiful and deadly and reminding him how bittersweet this is. It can only be fleeting but he will have every moment of it he can, every second allotted to him in this short life, made shorter still by his circumstance.

He rubs himself against it, enjoying the way Ned’s already shortened breath hitches. “You wanted to play at being a tavern whore. Here we are.”

Ned pushes him lightly, then pulls him closer. “I need attention,” he says, taking Hal’s hand and pressing it to his cock.

The decision is made. Hal sinks to his knees, reaching to unlace Ned’s straining britches. He can smell the salt of him, see the wetness of it before he takes it into his mouth and tastes it. He’s never done this, but he’s received it enough times to know what he must do. Ned looks down at him, eyes wide, teeth worrying his lower lip, and Hal stares back up, thinking about how his jaw hurts, how strange men taste, and how it will soon be his turn.

At first he tries to make it last, tongue licking, cheeks sucking, excited by the pleasure he’s giving. Eventually he tires, uses his hand, gives his mouth rest it sorely needs. Ned accepts it, seems to prefer it even as his breath shortens and his body trembles. Then his hips thrust forward and he curses beneath his breath. Hal narrowly avoids being covered in his seed.

Ned is smiling, chuckling slightly, as he catches his breath. Hal doesn’t mind but he’s eager to move things to their natural conclusion. He fights his britches off as he moves towards the bed, watching Ned to make sure he follows.

He must be tired, surely, the hazy afterglow of what he’s had giving way to the lethargy Hal has been overcome by more than once, but Ned stumbles along, wet, dripping cock drooping sated between his legs. He falls onto the bed, but though he looks exhausted by the effort of coming off, his eyes twinkle and he’s clearly ready to return what he owes.

“You’ve a fine mouth,” he says, before wrapping his own lips around Hal’s cock, first to suck, and then as he grows tired too, to have the wet hole fucked by Hal while he tightens his lips. Hal can’t go all the way to the hilt, but Ned will learn to swallow a sword as well as Doll, in time. Hal will tutor him.

All too soon it is over. The room spins as they take up a new position on the bed. Ned lays flush against him. Hal could live a lifetime in this moment. He kisses Ned, tastes himself and wishes he’d given the lad sweeter than he did.

But Ned smiles as he presses his face against Hal’s, nose rubbing against his cheek. Hal doesn’t have to wish he had tasted better or sucked with more skill because Ned seems happy enough with what he is.

Then Ned whispers, “Who are you?”

Hal pauses too long. He wants to say, “I’m your lover,” but he can’t bring himself to mouth words that are so empty even as they say everything important. Seconds ago he’d thought he was enough, now all he can think is that Ned Poins took him in his mouth, made love to him, trusted him, and Hal cannot even give his name.

He doesn’t speak.

“Who are you, Hal? Tell me.”

“Does it matter?”

The irritation in his voice does, that is clear as Ned pulls away from him.

“My family want to meet the young man who kept me out all night. If you are deemed an unsuitable companion I might lose my allowance. My choice is you or my already pitiful income, so yes, it does matter.”

“Well, I’m thoroughly disreputable.” 

“That’s what I feared you’d say.” Ned leaves the bed, pulling up his britches and lacing them. “I can’t stay tonight. I’ve no money. I’ve two pounds to my name right now and I can’t piss it up Quickly’s wall.”

Two pound is a king’s ransom to the other men who drink here but to Hal it is nothing. “You don’t need to worry about money here, I’ve plenty for both of us.”

“And where will your money be coming from?” Ned snaps. “Wait, I’d rather not know. It’ll be easier to lie to my family that way.”

“You are staying then?”

“No. But I’ll come back.”

“Soon?”

“As soon as I have the means.” Hal opens his mouth to offer again but Ned adds, “Don’t say you’ll keep me in sack and sugar, I’ll have none of it from you.”

Few men have ever talked to Hal that way. His father, his brother’s, that’s it. Hal hates it, hates that he thinks of the lectures now when he should be laying in bed with Ned in his arms, warm and snug, readying himself to suck deep again as soon as they’re able.

“Ned, I wish I could tell you, I really do but—”

“But you trust Quickly more than me?”

“No. I’m protecting you.”

He’s protecting himself because that hate, that spike of irritation at being spoken to in such a manner, that validates every sweet look and every soft word and every moment they have been together. One day he’ll marry for the advantage of his country, but Ned looks at him like he’s the basest cur and still he’ll come back for Hal. Or maybe for his cock. But he’d rather a man wanted him for that than anything else he might get.

Ned’s sat on the end of the bed now, pulling on his boots. Hal shifts behind him and rests his chin on Ned’s shoulder. “One day,” he says. “You’ll not wait forever.”

“You’re right, I won’t,” Ned mutters, shrugging him off. But then he turns and kisses Hal hard, all teeth and stubble, and maybe even some anger.

Hal pulls him back onto the bed and they melt together again.


	12. Chapter Twelve

Chapter Twelve

Hal has to be rotten, Ned thinks, as he makes his way back through the streets of London.

The air is thick with the smell of the market and people jostling together. Ned keeps one hand on his purse and the other on his dagger, but he can’t focus his thoughts to safety. All he can think is that, had he not left Hal lying on their dirty bed at the Boar’s Head, his lover might be amongst these people too. He might be the sort of man he ought to watch out for.

Hal has the manners of a man raised to better, that is no question. Had he fallen so hard because of his taste for men small beer and men? Surely not. Better men than them had worse vices. Was he, perhaps, a man raised on the streets who’d learnt to ape the nobility? Again, no. He was too polished a jewel, even with his thick body decorated with scars.

But Hal has a secret and it has to be bad if he is truly protecting Ned.

Ned moves out of the crowded street and onto the main road West. It’s safer there, busy enough that no bands of thieves will try their luck and well away from the cutpurses. He relaxes physically, an involuntary motion born out of instinct that he’s safer here because Hal still obscures all other thought.

The sensible thing to do would be return home, tell Geoffrey that Hal is not the man he thought he was and that he’s done helping him. Then, once a month, they might meet for an hour or two, if Hal can hold his drink that long.

Ned isn’t feeling sensible and he has no faith that Hal could be. Sensible means staying quiet, having no risk and therefore no pleasure, playing his part as a dutiful son, brother, but not friend, and holding and hiding his heart. That’s no life, even with a good bed to sleep in and food in his belly. He’s been living that for far too long.

Suddenly he’s aware of shouts around him, weak arms yanking him away from the path. He has his dagger in his hand immediately, instinct again, but as he turns he sees an older woman, a basket on her arm, wholly unthreatening.

“What is it?” he demands, then notices the sound of galloping hooves and turns to see Hal riding hard on the finest horse he has ever seen. Hal passes him without a glance as if he is invisible.

“Thank you,” Ned says, turning to the woman who waves his thanks aside.

“He may have gone round you, but he may not have done. You can never tell with him. Better not to take the chance.”

“What do you mean?”

“He’s a wild one.”

They return to the road walking together and Ned focuses on their steps and conversation and anything else that means he will not think about Hal. Ned escorts her to the farm she calls home and then returns to his father’s home wearily, arriving later than he intended.

Geoffrey waits for him by the fire in the great hall. “It’s late,” he says as Ned enters.

“Yes. I met an old woman on the road and escorted her home to the Pearce estate. You can send a man to check if you want, I won’t be offended.”

“What of your friend? Did you meet him and discover his name?” Geoffrey has been waiting a week to ask this and looks very pleased with himself.

“You were right, brother. I’ll find no one of consequence at a tavern like that.”

Ned’s still thinking of those words when he climbs into bed that evening. Hal’s horse alone would be worth more than the Poins household income for the entire year. How would a man like him, a man of no consequence, acquire such a beast?

He wishes he’d asked the old woman. She knew Hal by sight well enough to know him to be wild and fear him to be dangerous and yet Ned could not bring himself to ask about who he was or how he inspired her scorn. No good would come of it, only disapproval on both their parts.

Despite his best efforts, his mind turned over what he knew and his imagination supplied the rest.

Whatever he came from originally, Hal could only be a criminal now.


	13. Chapter Thirteen

Chapter Thirteen

Hal is dizzy as he feasts with his father’s court. He has taken Poins to bed and tasted his sweetness. If there’d been more time and a little grease he’d have had him completely, but his mouth was more than enough to satisfy him twice over.

And yet, hours later, he’d have more if he could.

It had been too long since he’d seen a man on his knees, too long without the pleasurable sense of command over someone worthy of being ruled. And he has never, _ever_ let himself be so used as he was this evening. He’d never known he could be so debauched, yet when Ned Poins pushed him, he fell to his knees and suckled merrily. Even when it hurt his jaw, even when he tasted bitter, salty seed, even when his stamina failed him, he revelled in how base he’d become. A man raised to be king, kneeling on a filthy tavern floor and lazing in a filthier tavern bed, taking another man’s cock into his mouth. It was humiliating, and yet he had never felt such freedom as in that moment.

That’s not to say he didn’t enjoy getting his turn. His cock in Poins’ mouth was a sight to behold, and in his arse could only be better. Hal was full of urges of the lowest kind. For every sweet kiss he wanted to bestow another part of him longed to pillage the body beneath him. Rape, no, there’d be no pleasure in that. But he wanted to be rough with Ned the way he’s never been before. He wants to fuck him so he knows he’s been had by a man, by a soldier, by a prince, even. By a king, one day, though that could never be. It will be over before then.

Hal closes his eyes and listens to the music from the court entertainers, the conversation from those around him. He smells the food, tastes what he’s had already in his mouth. He tries to immerse himself in the present so his cock will stop believing it is back with Ned and standing so tall and eager for him again.

Hours later, alone and satisfied once more, Hal thinks about Ned with a clearer head. He’s not sure how long he can maintain the anonymity, or even how long he can continue to sneak out to Eastcheap. It must end eventually, and though he’s enjoyed the drinking and carousing, until Ned only Falstaff had given him a pang of regret that this could never last. Falstaff gives him something his own father cannot, and Hal loves him for it. But Ned... Hal thinks he might simply fall in love with Ned if this is allowed to continue.

Only God knows how long Hal may live, but however long it is, Ned won’t be part of his life forever. He’ll soak in it while he can, that pure attraction and affection he’ll never know again. Hal will make it last.


	14. Chapter Fourteen

Chapter Fourteen

Ned is still tired when he wakes, having spent the night tossing or turning and thinking about the situation he has found himself in. Yesterday morning he believed he had a lover of his class and status, a man of standing and good name, even if they debauched together when they were alone. Now he knows better.

Should he return to the tavern? He made a promise and Hal knows his name. He could find out where the Poins estate is, and Ned no longer thinks it meet that he should visit. Better they keep this low, just as it began. So, he must return to Hal whoever and whatever he may be.

Now the morning has come, and he could sleep the day away were it not for Geoffrey tramping noisily about the room. Ned rolls over to watch him inspecting the clothes in his trunk. He’s laid out his comb, and linen, and ash to clean his teeth. Ned can smell the mint in the mixture, and the small cup of vinegar on the table. Geoffrey must have someone to impress.

“Visiting the swineherd?” Ned asks, yawning as he pulls the sheets up and over his shoulder.

Geoffrey glances across at him. “I sent a man to check the story of your escort and he returned with very interesting news. The Pierce’s great barn caught fire yesterday, which is why the old mother was travelling alone—there was no one sent to chaperone her return. They’ve lost a third of their fruits and vegetable harvest and all the grain.”

He’s smiling as he says it, as if the announcement is marvellous news. It must be good for him, it being worthy of effort in his dress today. Geoffrey has never been a peacock, preferring to keep his good clothes for best and oversee the farm in simpler attire, though it is cleaner and better maintained than the servants and labourers wear. He’s like father: careful with his money, but of course, he would be, for one day it will be his inheritance. Ned won’t see much beyond twenty pounds when the old man breathes his last. At least he will not allow himself to be pushed into the church for financial support, though there were times when he thought it might be a safe place for a man like him.

“It will be poor fair at their table this winter,” Ned says, wondering how they’ll get through. Even with the animals and the tenants, they’ll struggle, if the rumours about them are true.

“They’ll eat, I’m sure. They’ve plenty to pawn for bread, once their debts are paid.”

“So they are in debt?”

“To the Italian’s, yes.”

“How much?”

“Enough.”

Geoffrey turns back to his task with new vigour, humming now. Ned can’t remember seeing his brother so pleased, and the circumstances are disconcerting. He feels a little sick at the thought of his brother’s enjoyment of another family’s downfall.

“You seem so pleased by their misfortune,” he comments, unable to keep the distaste from his voice.

“No, no, not at all. But we are in a position to help them.”

“Then do so.”

“We will.”

At what cost, Ned thinks, but he won’t say it. Geoffrey’s good mood, vile as it might be, may allow him to sneak out again sooner.

Geoffrey pours water from the jug into the wash bowl on the table and begins to undress. “I propose to make a marriage in return,” he says, pulling his linen shirt over his head and tossing it aside. “If we take Pearce’s daughter now she’ll have nothing to come with but chattels and land and her father will be grateful! In exchange for a loan to repay their debts to the Italian’s we could increase our estate, receive an introduction at court—”

“And marry off the problem son?” Ned says, stomach clenching, for there is only one person they can foist her upon.

“You? Heaven’s no. I’ll be making the bid for her. We’ll find someone fitting your status.”

Ned ignores the insult—it is the lot of any second son, and though he curses the lack of income, he’s grateful he doesn’t have to sire any children. “I thought you were going to ask for Matilda’s hand?”

“I was, but Anne will prove a much more profitable match.” Geoffrey splashes water on his face and then turns around to grin at Ned. “You know, that old fool Pearce had been trying to get her in front of Prince Henry himself. Imagine, I will be married to a woman who might have been queen one day.”

If she can be queen she’ll refuse Geoffrey, there’s no ignoring that, nor that Geoffrey has not yet made his bid. Whatever comes of it, Ned is filled with distaste. May he never live long enough to suffer such an unfortunate match.


	15. Chapter Fifteen

Chapter Fifteen

It’s only been one night, but Hal decides to visit the Boar’s Head tavern again, for Ned surely cannot stay away too long now. If they only meet for another hour it will be a better hour spent there than sitting in the hall listening to the chatter of the court for another moment.

He doesn’t care if old Pearce is ruined financially, and nor does anyone else it seems because none step up to help him when he relates the tale of the unfortunate fire which occurred on his property. There are murmurs of sympathy but no offer of support or bids to acquire his land or his daughter, nothing that would change their fortunes for the better.

Members of the court come and go. There are the favourites, the ones who helped Henry wrestle the crown from Richard, but even they are sometimes treated with short shrift by the king these days. It is oddly comforting to Hal to think that, though his father holds him in scant regard, he cares little for anyone else, either. The king is too interested in the eyes of God to wonder how others see him.

Hal stands from his seat at the high table slowly, careful not to scrape his chair on the flagstones. Pearce looks at him briefly, but Hal doesn’t much mind what he thinks about his departure now. He’ll be gone soon enough, taking his shrew wife with him, and with her gone that will be one less pair of disapproving eyes. The daughter too, though she seemed a sweet enough girl, will be one less hopeful to be shoved in front of him. Even if he had an eye for Englishwomen, and he does not, he is already promised to his fair cousin Catherine. Better that girls like Anne Pearce find a husband while they still have their looks and charm than wait for him.

He’s padding carefully out of the room, signalling to a servant to ready his horse when his progress is stopped by the sound of a heavy chair moving behind him.

“Excuse me a moment,” Henry says, and Hal looks over his shoulder to see his father pull his robes around himself. He’s not the powerfully built man he was when he took the throne and the many layers serve to keep him warm and enlarge him to his previous size.

He looks regal now, displeased too, and intimidating perhaps to others but not to Hal. He’d never given Hal enough love that the prospect of it being taken away bothered him.

“Hal!” he calls.

Hal stops and waits by the door. He looks back at the court rather than his father and sees them watching him in return. Most turn their faces down when he meets their eyes, but Harry Percy holds his gaze. Hal has a grudging respect for him, knowing he’s a good fighter, even if his temper is too hot.

Henry joins him and they both step outside into the hall to speak with only the guards as witness. No one important.

“Where are you going?” Henry asks bluntly.

Hal’s heart beats a little faster, but he hass learnt to control his emotions around the court, especially his father.

“For a ride.”

Henry nods slowly. Hal can tell the king is measuring his words carefully and he waits with a patience he does not feel for the battle to begin. He is a soldier, but even without that training he can tell his father has come to fight.

“How much is a ride in Eastcheap these days?” Henry asks.

“Father, please—”

“I asked how much is a ride in Eastcheap. What? No answer for me?” 

Hal has plenty to say but this is not the time and his father is not to be crossed. “May I go now?” he asks, voice controlled, looking the king in the eye.

“No. I’ll ask again, how much is a ride in Eastcheap?”

That depends who you’re riding. Hal is sure now that word of Ned has reached the palace, perhaps last night when Quickly sent for him, and he’s sure too that it comes as no surprise to his father now, not after Scroop and the kitchen lad.

“Why? Do you care to join me for a drink at the tavern? Or were you planning to make the visit your crusade?”

That hit its mark.

“Insolent boy!” Henry barks, “Get out of my sight!” 

Hal goes, head held high, even as his heart beats out of his chest in fear and anger. The guards fall into step behind him. Hal knows what he must do.


	16. Chapter Sixteen

Chapter Sixteen

Ned’s struggling to sleep again. Geoffrey snores drunkenly beside him and he hopes the proposal his brother made today is accepted because he’s tired of sharing a room with him. If Geoffrey gets a wife some other provision will be made for Ned and it cannot come quickly enough.

He’s contemplating smothering his brother with a pillow when he hears a sound outside that sends a chill up his spine. Someone or something is attempting to scale the wall outside. There’s a ripping as the ivy is pulled from the wall, then a thump as whoever it is hit’s the floor.

Nell is Ned’s first thought. He leaves the bed and hurries to the window to see what it is that’s trying to get into their home, but the fear for his sister leaves as quickly as it arrives.

“Hal?” he hisses, opening the window and looking down at his lover who is on his arse on the floor. “What are you doing here?”

Hal looks up at him. He’s drunk and dishevelled again, though not as far gone as he was the first night the spent together. “I wanted to see you.”

“Wait,” Ned says, closing the window. He takes his blanket from the bed, throws it over his shoulders and then slips silently from the room. Geoffrey doesn’t seem to have been disturbed but the rest of the household might not sleep so soundly, so Ned creeps as silently as he can, though with all necessary speed.

The front door is locked and he doesn’t have the key, but he can get out via a window downstairs instead if he absolutely has to. He goes to the study and unbolts the lock. As he’s opening the window he sees Hal hurrying to him, arms outstretched to help him climb out.

“No,” Ned hisses. “I have to go back to bed, and you have to go home. You can’t be here.”

“Why?”

“You’re thoroughly disreputable, remember? Or did I imagine you told me that?”

“No, I am that, I can’t deny it.” Hal drops his arms and sighs. “But I have a confession and it cannot wait.”

“What?”

It seems it can wait, for Hal suddenly can’t find the words. He runs a hand through his hair and looks away.

“Goodnight, Hal,” Ned says. He pulls the window to shut it but Hal catches the frame and holds it open.

“Doll,” he says simply and sharply but even in the dark his eyes give away something else. It’s worry, Ned thinks, for surely it cannot be fear.

“What about her?”

“I’m sorry, Ned.” It’s all the response Hal gives but Ned knows why he’s sorry. Hal’s been in her bed before, he’s never made a secret of that and there’s no need to apologise for it. Even if she had his bastard in her belly, no one could ever be sure it was his because there’d be too many before and since. No, this must have happened tonight.

But it doesn’t hurt, not deeply, it’s a visceral cut: wounded ego, not the bleeding of a broken heart. Ned likes Hal, likes him rather more than he ought to, but he’s no fool. Hal can’t or won’t be honest with him, and he may even be dangerous. For every sweetly mumbled word he has heard at the tavern, the words of mother Pearce ring in his ears. “ _He’s a wild one, that one.”_ Ned comes from more civilised stock.

Part of Ned thinks it might be a convenient way to end this, to keep the villain away so that his brother, and eventually his sister, will have a chance at making a decent marriage. It’s distasteful, but it’s what Geoffrey and their father wants, and in the long run, Ned knows that is what is important.

“Why are you sorry?” he asks, “You owe me nothing.”

“Don’t I?”

“You won’t give me your name, what does it matter who you prick?”

Hal huffs, as if Ned has insulted him in the rudest fashion, though he did nothing but speak a truth. “I didn’t have to tell you this. I could have hidden it, bought the same secrecy I have for my name, but I chose to come here and be honest with you. I could not have it on my conscience to betray you.”

Ned almost laughs. How ridiculous to think the man he sucked last night, who sucked him twice in return, should need to unburden himself over a tavern whore while he carries around a crime that might damn him to hell, if you listen to the scriptures.

“I’m no cleric, I can’t hear your confession and I’m not about to offer you absolution.”

“I don’t want that.”

“Then why did you come?”

“To be with you.”

Oh. Just as Ned has hardened his heart, Hal says this. Ned sees a glimpse of the sweet boy who appears when Hal’s in his cups, the boy who wanted so much to kiss him. Hal can be loud, boisterous even, when he’s had a drink—his sense of humour with Falstaff and his friends so often seemed cruel—and yet, when they’re alone, or alone enough for Hal, which is never enough for Ned, he’s all honey.

“You’ve seen me,” Ned says, holding onto the ice in his heart as best he can, though it’s slippery now.

“And to kiss you.” Hal tugs gently on the window and Ned lets go of it. He lets Hal open it fully and reach in, taking Ned’s hand. “I was careful, I’ve not been followed. Come into the woods with me.”

Ned ought to send Hal on his way. Even if Hal had been as chaste as a nun when they were apart, he shouldn’t be here. It is too dangerous.

“Even if you’ve washed, I’d rather wait,” Ned says flippantly, hoping Hal will accept the rejection with good grace the way he did when they woke up together. “Who knows what symptoms will appear?”

“I had her toss me, that’s all. I didn’t even kiss her.”

“Give her a glove next time.”

Ned tries to tug the window closed again but Hal holds it fast. “There won’t be another time. I had something to prove and I proved it and I am yours again. We must be more careful next time, that’s all.”

“I’ve been saying that to you since the night we met.”

Hal winces slightly and sighs. “Sometimes I forget I’m not yet the greatest force in the land.”

“Not yet?” Whatever his background, Ned thinks Hal is definitely a first son. “You say some strange things.”

“What about this? Ned, I love you.”

There’s silence for a long moment. Ned waits for Hal to suggests they go to the woods again but his young man says nothing, merely looks at him through the window like he’s expecting a reply.But what is Ned to say to that? They barely know each other, and the sheen has worn off the joy of their burgeoning affair.

But Hal waits, so Ned asks, “Did you love me when you cuckolded me in the Boar’s Head tonight?”

“Yes.” Hal doesn’t flinch. Unburdened, he is no longer contrite.

“Then why didn’t you think about how mercilessly your friends will treat me now? Why did you not think what Falstaff will say to me when I arrive at the tavern?”

“I’ll tell you exactly what I thought. I thought, Ned will despise me for this, and he’ll have every right to.”

“So we are done?”

“No,” Hal says urgently, “Please, no. I could do no more and no less than I did for safeties sake and I did it to protect us.”

Ned believes him, but he’s tired and worried and he wants Hal to go. “Don’t come here again.”

“Please, Ned.”

“I will meet you at the tavern tomorrow night. Now go.”

Ned tugs on the window frame again and this time Hal lets go. As he shuts it, he hears Hal muttering blasphemy beneath his breath.

When he returns to bed he doesn’t expect to sleep, but Geoffrey snores beside him and soon enough he slumbers peacefully.


	17. Chapter Seventeen

Chapter Seventeen

The sun is coming up when Hal arrives home. Only five miles separate Poins home and Westminster, but Hal has been in no rush. He walks his horse, careless of the danger the road might pose so late at night, and arrives to a new day.

The stable lad isn’t yet awake but Hal leaves his horse with the guard and trudges wearily inside, glad to be finally tired enough that sleep will come easy to him.

Is this what it means to be the heir to the throne of England? Hal has long accepted he must give his life over to maintaining his father’s grip on the country one day. He’s trained to fight and die for it if he has to, and has been raised to think of the land and the people as being under his complete command, to manage as he wishes. This is the easy part, appealing to a deeply buried desire that he can only name as greed. His father took the crown, but he will inherit it as did Richard and the kings who came before him. The divine right Henry disrespected will be his son’s.

It’s a powerful feeling, knowing God placed him in the seat of all England’s power. Of all men, he was the one God chose, and though He made him strong and intelligent, He didn’t make him perfect.

God didn’t make him repentant, either. Hal might choose to lie with a man but he feels no shame for it. After Scroop, his father commented that this was Hal’s cross to bear. He’s proud of it, proud of his imperfection. Not proud enough to flaunt it in front of the court, but it’s not something to be ignored and buried either. Christ carried his cross to the end, and Hal had thought he might do the same.

How foolish he had been to think that while he occupied himself in such a lowly manner he might enjoy some sweetness with it. How addled his brain was by the promise of a divinely ordained power, how smitten he was by the boy who treated him like a man, not a prince.

Tonight he has learned the true cost. He knew he shouldn’t go to the taverns and stews, but he went—young men carouse, and he still believes the experience will serve him one day. But Ned... Ned was just for him.

He’s nearly reached his chamber when his father steps into the hall and their eyes meet.

“One penny!” Hal calls to him, not caring who he might wake in the surrounding rooms.

“Pardon?” the king says as he approaches. He’s aging, but he still has a powerful stride and Hal can’t see himself becoming king any time soon.

“One penny—that is how much a ride in Eastcheap cost me tonight.”

“So I heard,” Henry says, voice dripping with distaste. “It’s important to be seen to be doing the right thing but you’re only halfway there. You ought to consider that before you next decide to visit the taverns.”

Tonight has cost Hal more than a penny. He knows two things now. First, that his body and his soul and his heart no more belong to him than France does right now, no more even than Ned Poins does. He always knew he’d marry one day, known too his cousin Catherine is the one, but it had never occurred to him he shouldn’t have the lover of his choice too. Now he knows better.

Second, and perhaps most painfully, he understands what it really means to be a man rather than a prince. He could win a heart most genuinely, but he could lose it that way too. He’d needed Ned tonight, needed him to take away the stain of Doll’s fingers on his flesh and replace it with something better. Yes, he’d been hard, yes he’d come off—his cock was receiving the attention of a master, but throughout and afterward he felt vile. It wasn’t his choice to let her touch him, though it had to appear as such, and he couldn’t blame her for it. He’d offered her the penny, she’d taken it and provided the service.

She wasn’t the first woman, wouldn’t be the last, and though they weren’t his first choice, he found in the past that he didn’t mind taking them to bed. Before Ned Poins, it hadn’t mattered. After, no one else would do, and Ned hadn’t given him comfort when he’d needed it. He too, had done nothing wrong. And all Hal had done was prepare himself to be king.

“Will you excuse me from the council today?” he asks, thinking Henry owes him that. He alone has bestowed the burden of the throne on Hal, even if it was god’s design. He ought to allow him some privilege for it.   
“You must be seen there as much as you must be seen to enjoy normal, healthy attractions. But we will meet this afternoon rather than this morning, so I don’t have to suffer the indignity of a son who looks and smells like he spent the evening with a tavern whore. Three o’clock.”

“I’ll be there.”

“You will. And this time you won’t leave until we are finished.”

Hal will not be at the tavern tonight, he’s certain his father will see to that. What Ned will think, Hal cannot guess.


	18. Chapter Eighteen

Chapter Eighteen

Ned sleeps late. He has little in the way of duties, supervisory work being his main occupation, though he has learnt everything involved in managing the estate. He is one sweating sickness from death or delivery into the life of minor privilege his brother will inherit when their father finally succumbs.

He thinks of this as he lays in bed. It has crossed his mind before, the knowledge that while his brother remains unmarried the estate will fall entirely to him. It was as if their father waited for it, for he’d never bought Ned land, nor much of an education. Oxford had seen him well enough but he’d been down four years and hadn’t done anything with it. He was waiting for Geoffrey’s issue, and Geoffrey was happy to have the help for free so he’s been allowed to relax somewhat.

If Anne Pearce accepts Geoffrey’s offer, however, these leisurely days will come to their end. Ned will need work, and will become a knight, or a priest, or invest what little money his father leaves him into trade. The obvious option, a wealthy wife, isn’t one he’ll pursue.

How much longer will his life be like this? If he’s a knight he’ll follow the army, if a priest, a semblance of piety will keep him from the Boar’s Head, and as a trader he’ll need to move around. His time with Hal, short as he’d always believed it might be, seems all the shorter now.

That’s for the best. Last night was proof that a love affair is too dangerous for them to sustain. Hal had to debase himself publicly to protect himself, and Ned feared being found even talking to a man late at night. No, this has to end, and quickly. He has to think of the Poins reputation, and it would be selfish to put his own desire to bed the lad first when he has a brother and sister who both need to make a match.

He is very careful not to think of what Hal said.

“Ned, I love you.”

It’s in the corner of his mind, a place that’s visible from the sidelines but he won’t give it attention. So simple. No pretty words for him. Just that look, that defiant look that dared Ned to love him back. It was a challenge, and one Ned couldn’t rise to at the time—the fear of discovery was too strong—but now he has made up his mind, settled himself to the fact that their next meeting may be their last, he lets himself relive those words. Alone like this, with nothing but his thoughts, he’s able to enjoy them.

It had never occurred to him that he could be loved. Not really. Not the sort of love one man could offer another like that. He’d thought perhaps he might have some good nights, maybe even find a friend to love at a distance, but he didn’t believe there was a man out there who could like him enough to go to him in the middle of the night and confess love, as if Ned were a maid who’d swoon at the thought.

He should have been born a maid, if only so they could be together. But Hal wouldn’t want him that way, Ned’s certain of that. He could perform alright, but if Hal just wanted a hole to fuck he could have found easier than Ned’s.

This was about his masculinity, that’s all. And maybe it was about him, his looks and his body and his behaviour. Maybe even his heart.

Hal was getting something from him, at any rate, something more than Ned intended to give away. He takes only calculated risks, he’s too sensible, he could never do what Hal did last night. Hal was wild, and careless, maybe even stupid. If he ever had responsibilities he must have forgotten about them. They are two very different men.

Ned pushes the sheets off and climbs out of his bed. He needs to wash, to comb his hair, to clean his teeth and to dress. He needs to stop thinking about Hal.

He goes to the jug and bowl and pours some water to wash with. There are rose petals floating on the top of the water and he lets them fall into the bowl, their faint fragrance perfuming the air. They smell sweet, so he focuses on that as he takes a deep breath. Then he plunges his hands into the tepid water and closes his eyes, feeling that sensation over all else.

He gives it all his attention. Hal comes to his mind occasionally but each time he lets him go, focusing on his senses and the world around him.

He washes and dresses himself this way and feels better for it before he’s interrupted by a knock on the door.

“Enter,” he calls, expecting it to be a servant as Geoffrey wouldn’t have knocked.

“Oh good, you’re finally awake,” Nel says as she bustles inside, skirts sweeping the floor as she turns to close the door behind her. She looks back at him and smiles, looking happier than he’s ever seen her. “I’ve brought you some bread. Have it in here as Mary has cleared the table, and then you’re to go take over from Geoffrey as he is going to the Pearces today.”

Ned takes the plate from her and then sits down upon his bed. The bread is fresh and thickly buttered and he’s glad to have it. A full stomach always comforts a wandering mind. “Hoping to get an acceptance for his offer?” he asks around mouthfuls.

“He believes he’ll get it. You’re lucky he’s in such a good mood else they’d have sent me up here an hour before with nothing but a tongue lashing.”

“I’m surprised Geoffrey is even awake. He drank too much last night and snored like a wild boar. I barely slept.”

She laughs at this, a wide grin on her face. Dropping her voice she whispers, “Nothing to do with your visitor, then?”

“I’m sorry?” Ned’s heart jumps in his chest. Perhaps he misheard her. Please God, let him have misheard her.

“The rest of the house might have slept through it but not I. Who is he?”

“A friend, that’s all.”

“Rather a handsome one.”

Ned swallows a mouthful of half-chewed bread, feels the uncomfortable bulk of it as it passes down his gullet. “Please, Nel,” he hisses, rising from the bed, “don’t say that.”

“Don’t tell me you hadn’t noticed.”

“We cannot talk like this!”

“And you cannot be receiving men at all hours of the night.”

“I know that. I didn’t ask him to come and I sent him away immediately. Please, don’t tell father or Geoffrey.”

“Of course I won’t.”

“Thank you.”

“And in return you must take me to a tavern.”

The smile has never left her face and it only grows wider now. The stupid girl is all of seventeen years old and has little idea about the world outside. She probably thinks it is all bards and dancing and revelry every night, and has no idea of the gambling and fucking which are daily entertainments, nor the occasional murder the tavern sees.

“No,” Ned snaps. “Not a chance.”

“I’ll tell them.”

“They’d rather hear a friend called for me at an ungodly hour and was sent on his way than find out I took you to a tavern. It’s no place for a lady.”

Her smile disappears, replaced with a pout he has seen many times over their shared childhood. “That is so unfair! You get to go where you please and do what you want just because you’re a man.”

“I wish that were true.”

“It is true! I have a chaperone to take me to the washhouse! I have never been alone with a man but you can do as you wish.”

“If you think it is easy for me to be alone with a man, you are sorely mistaken,” Ned mutters. There’s nothing in his life so hard as that. “You think I’d send handsome men away if it was easy?”

“If I were you, I’d do as I please.”

“And if I were you I’d be furious you ruined my good name. Then I’d die alone.”

“I’d rather die alone than end up with some man who married me for what he could get.”

“Either could be arranged.”

For all the impracticality of it, Ned understands her. It’s the idealism of youth, he thinks, the part of him that went out looking for a man like Hal. Why shouldn’t it exist in his sister too? They’re the same flesh and blood after all.

“I’ll only marry a man who I love and loves me, and I’m never going to meet one if I don’t go out into the world,” she begs.

“You’ll not meet a husband in the Boar’s Head. You might meet someone else’s husband who’ll offer you a few pennies to pretend to be his wife for a few minutes.”

“I hate you,” she spits and leaves the room. Ned waits by the door, listening to her footsteps as she goes. She doesn’t call for Geoffrey or father, and he soon hears the door to her room slam and then loud, pathetic sobbing.


	19. Chapter Nineteen

Chapter Nineteen

Hal stares at the ceiling. He hasn’t the will to pretend he’s interested in what is being said, not tonight. He likes to drink and carouse, but he keeps his ears and his eyes open at Westminster, for the most part, and knows more than he’ll ever tell. Let them be surprised.

Tonight, however, he cannot even pretend to care about the talk or the people or the crown. Tonight all he can think is that Ned will be waiting for him and he won’t be there.

Not that Ned will care. His patience was threadbare last night and now it will be completely worn out.

Hal wonders vaguely if his message reached the tavern and if Ned has received it yet. Right now he might be slinking back home, ashamed at ever putting his trust in Hal. Maybe he stomps, angry at being insulted and ignored by Hal tonight.

Or maybe he is not there either.

Why did Hal say he loved him? Because it is true. He loves Ned, loves that Ned knows all his shames and nothing he is supposed to be proud of, and he embraces it all—and wants more. Tavern life will sot you with sack, beer, ale, mead, and basic human indecency, which might be the headiest of them all. Hal had thought it a place he need not be afraid to show his colours, but duty had found him, even there. Alone with Ned is the only place he can be free.

“Harry?” John nudges him and Hal’s head is back with the council.

He looks around at the expectant faces. They’re waiting for him to speak but he has nothing to say.

“Forgive me, gentlemen. My mind was elsewhere.”

No one passes comment, and the King takes the discussion on to other matters. Hal cannot even muster the will to be embarrassed. Instead he returns his gaze to the ceiling and his thoughts to the man he’d give all England to be with right now.


	20. Chapter Twenty

Chapter Twenty

Falstaff has an enormous smile upon his face. It’s tragic, Ned thinks, that a man so completely lacking in decency and manners should be so happy. Pigs like mud and filth, they smell of shit until you cut them up and salt them for bacon, and no doubt they lead happy lives whatever their situation. Falstaff, therefore, is a pig.

Ned ignores him and looks around for Hal. He’s got two urges—the first, to berate him mercilessly for the danger he placed them both in last night, the second, to fuck his mouth rather than hear a single apology out of it.

“Young Hal sent word he can’t be here tonight,” Falstaff shouts, loud enough the whole tavern can hear, even above the usual ruckus.

“You think I’ll trust you?” Ned shouts back without sparing him a glance.

“It’s true. He has business to attend to.” Ned ignores him still and Falstaff bellows, “You know how it is. You had business last night, and he entertained himself with Doll, which entertained many of us in here too. She’ll do the same for you, I’m sure, though I for one will be less inclined to see it.”

Most of the taverngoers laugh. Ned can feel his face burn, but he’s got too much dignity to let Falstaff see the other ways his words affect him. He weaves his way through the crowd to the only ally he has. “Mistress Quickly, will you help me?”

She’s pouring ale and waits until she’s filled the pot in her hand before she turns her attention to him, fixing a tight-lipped smile to her tired face.

“You can find Hal, can’t you? Tell him I’ll be here tomorrow but that is the only night this month.” Ned reaches for his money but she stops him, pushing the purse away before it has left his belt.

“He’s asked for word from you, if you appeared, and paid handsomely for it too. He’s left a bit for a drink too.”

“Can I buy some truth from you instead? Where can I find him tonight?”

“Nowhere you can go. Now, do you want a drink or a bit of supper? There’s enough for you to have Doll, if you need to.” He can see from her face she means well. Falstaff enjoys this but she does not, but she’s used to doing things she doesn’t enjoy.

He’s not afraid to play to her weakness—coin. “If I can double whatever Hal has given you, will you tell me what I want to know?”

“Ned, lad, even if you had deep enough pockets, which you don’t, there’s not a soul in Eastcheap who’ll tell you.”

“Has he bought every man’s silence?”

“Not exactly. But he’s generous when he’s here, and talk can be dangerous. Leave it, please, for his sake if not yours.”

She bustles past him with her pot, off to whatever customer waits for it. Ned watches her, but she doesn’t look at him or return to the barrels for more drink. She settles down on the lap of Falstaff’s cohort, Ancient Pistol, and kisses him on the mouth.

More pigs, more shit, Ned thinks as he walks away. He’s done with it.


	21. Chapter Twenty-One

Chapter Twenty-One

Hal sits up all night and then leaves before dawn. If he waits, Henry will have him sit at the council again and another opportunity will be wasted. If he can make it to the Boar’s Head before dawn and acquire a room then he has a place to hide and to entertain Ned.

If he comes. Hal hopes he’ll come. Quickly sent word he will be there but he might be waylaid or change his mind.

But Hal will be there. He’s broken one promise, he’ll not break another. To Ned he will, perhaps, that’s inevitable, but he promises himself now that he will take every opportunity to be happy while he can.

So he rides to Eastcheap and thumps his fist on the stable doors until the boy gets up and takes him. Then he’s rattling the door to the tavern, bellowing for Quickly to get up and let him inside. He ignores the shouts from the locals telling him to shut up, forgets the sullen look the stable lad gave him, and thinks only of himself.

It’s easier to do that here, stood in the muddy, dirty street, just another man looking for a tavern bed. In Westminster there’s responsibility at every turn, disapproving looks and murmurs because he dares to enjoy the life God gave him. He attends council when he’s needed, trains daily for battle, and studies the scripture with papal dedication. If he misses a day here or there, he feels no shame in it, and if he spends the night looking for pleasure there’s no wrong in that either. The crown owns him, but he’ll not be a slave to it until it sits upon his head.

Eventually the door opens and Quickly lets him in wearily. “He’s gone,” she says, and they both know who she’s talking about. “I sent word he’ll be here tomorrow night.”

Hal bows, snatching up her hand to kiss it. “I received it, good woman, but I could not guarantee I’d be able to get away later. Better to come drink and be merry while I wait than for something to distract me at home.”

“I’ll wake Sir John,” she says. “He’ll have a drink with you.”

Falstaff will drink any time of the day or night, but that she doesn’t offer to wake the others suggests to Hal that the occupants of the Boar’s Head value sleep more than royalty. It’s an insulting thought, and the idea of drinking and merriment loses its lustre. He’d leave if he didn’t have business here.

“Have you a room free?” he asks. “It is late, or early, I’m not sure which. We all ought to sleep now.”

“I’ll move someone. Have a seat by the fire while you wait.”

A few minutes later, Falstaff wobbles down the stairs, wrapped in a blanket. They exchange pleasantries, then Hal heads up to Falstaff’s bed with a clean blanket and a need for sleep.

As he lays his head down on the bed he reminds himself that one day he’ll be king. For the first time he wonders if he’s wasting his time here. He wants to know his people, and now he does: they’re a feckless lot who care not about him.

Falstaff gave up his bed, and that counts for something. A better man wouldn’t have taken it from him, and for another man of his age and ill health, Hal would have declined. But Falstaff is strange and inspires strange emotions in him. How much sweeter it is keeping court with him than his father. It wouldn’t feel right to turn away his generosity.

This isn’t a waste of time. He’ll enjoy the company of Falstaff while he can, and Ned too. Even if Ned tells him tonight that they are finished, Hal has been repaid for the investment of his time, energy, good reputation, even. Ned might not love him, but he liked him well enough to go to his bed more than once. He’s taught Hal that he does have value beyond the crown, value as a man. That’s more satisfying than anything they’ve done in bed.

He closes his eyes and is soon at rest, dreaming of the lad he loves.


	22. Chapter Twenty-Two

Chapter Twenty-Two

Ned eyes the room with a scowl. No Hal. Again. He’s half-way out the door when Francis catches his arm and drags him back into the tavern.

“Master Hal is upstairs in Sir John’s room,” he says. He lets go of Ned and brushes the place his hand has been. “Sorry, sir.”

“You’re alright,” Ned replies, but he doesn’t tip him tonight.

Ned walks through the room, head held high, giving each man who’ll look him in the eye an expression that dares them to challenge him. They must all suspect he’s Hal’s lover and he gets a few sneers but most look away. They’re frightened of Hal, he thinks.

He is not frightened any more, not of Hal, nor them. He doesn’t want it getting out, but if it’s an open secret here, let it be so. Better it is a fact all must accept than a stick to beat him with, and he knows from past experience they would beat him were it not for Hal.

And yet Hal still felt the need to perform for them all. No doubt he has an image to maintain. If it’s useful, let him do it. Ned is trying to do the same after all.

That is why tonight will be the end of it.

“Ned!” It’s Hal, looking around the door of Falstaff’s room. The tavern turns to look at him, then hastily go back to their drink and their talk. Hal is barrelling down the stairs and then he has Ned by the shoulders and is manoeuvring him to an empty table. “I wasn’t sure you’d come,” he says as he sits down.

“You didn’t come last night.”

“I’m sorry. I wanted to be here but I couldn’t get away.”

“Falstaff was merciless,” Ned hisses, looking around for him.

“I said I’m sorry.”

“But you had somewhere more important to be.”

“I did.” Hal sits up, back straight. “I did have somewhere more important to be, somewhere perhaps I ought to be now but instead I have come to see you. Aren’t you pleased?”

“Such an honour.”

“You are too free with me,” Hal barks. Again the tavern hushes but this time no one turns back to their drinks. They’re all watching.

Let them watch, Ned thinks. “I’ll say what I like.”

“Only because I let you. I could silence you in a second. I could have you on your knees.”

“Is that a threat?” Ned growls.

Hal doesn’t speak but his red face tells the whole tavern how angry he is. He stares at Ned and then turns his gaze on the rest of them. “Drink,” he orders. “Make merry! Take your pleasure while you can!”

At his command the conversations strike back up, a song begins, men shout for drinks. They’re not simply afraid of Hal. They’re terrified.

“What have you done to them?” Ned asks, looking around the room.

“Please let it drop,” Hal mutters. “I came here to kiss you, not argue with you.”

“And I came to say goodbye. You shouldn’t have come to my home.”

“You said.”

“I’m serious. My family cannot afford to damage to our reputation right now. My brother wants to marry up and we must appear above reproach.”

At this Hal laughs bitterly. “You think your association with me will hamper his chances of making a good match?”

“It will, won’t it?”

“Perhaps.”

Damn, the man is infuriating. Ned’s got half his muscle and is a head shorter than him, but he’s tempted to give into his temper and start the fight he wants to have. “I don’t know who you are but you are not a gentleman and I will not be seen with you again,” he spits.

Ned’s rising from the table, meeting Hal’s incredulous gaze. “Can’t I be both?” Hal asks. “Surely there’s many a disreputable gentleman around. Some say they’re the most interesting kind. We should know our lessers just as well as our betters.”

“Poins’ don’t want to be interesting, we want to be safe and comfortable.”

“That’s a pity for you. For though it pays to be safe and comfortable, the living is done in the parts of life where it could all come to an end tomorrow. There’s a reason I’m here, Ned, and it’s not for the small beer and the smaller company.”

They stare at each other. It seems to last forever, Hal’s eyes blazing, burning into him. Ned feels like he’s been branded by Hal in front of the whole tavern, as if every man there can see not just the fury in Hal, but the desire too. Ned wonders if there’s a part of Hal that enjoyed being insulted by Ned. His look threatens a fuck every bit as much as a fight.

Ned whispers, “Are we going upstairs or not?”

A smirk draws across Hal’s face. “Now you’re interesting?”

“That’s a yes, then?”

Hal laughs. “Sit down and listen to me. You may think what you like of me, but I meant what I said at your window: I do love you.”

Ned sits abruptly, his legs feeling weak as his heart beats at three times the speed it ought to. “I thought you were going to be more careful,” he says, putting a hand on the table to steady himself. He’s trembling. He wishes he could feel the fear that coursed through his veins and hardened his heart when Hal stood outside his home, risking everything Ned had. Now he feels pleasure, heady heady pleasure at hearing the words without shame or fear. There’s nothing so good.

“Let me finish,” Hal says gently. “I love you, and because of that I grant you a liberty other men will never have with me, but I can’t give you everything now and if you must have it all then we really shall be through. Are you really done with me?”

“No.”

Hal waits as if he expects more from Ned. He won’t get it. The words are there but Ned cannot give them to him. He wants to, but what is the point? If Geoffrey gets his wife they’ve few meetings left, if any. Why make the inevitable hurt worse when it’s time for this to end? A few more nights, then he’ll be done, and why give Hal the excuse to seek him out when he needs privacy.

Eventually Hal forces a smile. “Whatever you feel for me, I still love you. I don’t need pretty words or promises. That has not yet changed.”

“Implying that one day it might,” Ned says, knowing all too well it is true.

“I’ve fought enough battles to know that no man should promise forever. None of us can deliver it.”

They stare across the table at each other. Ned looks into Hal’s eyes and thinks they’re both doomed to failure. He ought to leave, and yet...

“Will I ever know your truth?”

“One day,” Hal shrugs.

“One day is as good as never.”

“Not with this. I can’t hide it from you forever.”

“And it is an awful truth?”

Hal grins at him. “Most terrible. You’ll not look at me the same again.”

Ned’s mind races with possibilities, none of them pleasant. But the lad sitting before him is more than the thick muscles and the scarred face, and whatever he has done to survive, there’s a sweet soul inside him. Ned’s body might be softer but his heart is harder than Hal’s. He’s not afraid of whatever Hal might be, only of having him and not having him. It would be better they’d never met.

“Let’s go upstairs,” Ned says.


	23. Chapter Twenty-Three

Chapter Twenty-Three

“You have witchcraft in your lips,” Ned says as Hal moves them down his pole.

They haven’t made it upstairs to the bed. Ned wanted to piss and so Hal finds himself on his knees in the narrow alley between the tavern and the bakeshop.

The smells of yeast and urine fill the air, Hal’s jaw hurts, and this may be the lowest he’ll ever go yet his cock is aching. Funny, that a man born to such high office could enjoy the lowliest pleasures.

But his jaw does hurt so he replaces his mouth with his hand and smiles at Ned as he stands to kiss him.

“Do I make you forget your anger?”

Ned chuckles breathlessly. “I can barely remember my name. There’s nothing in the world but your sugar-touch upon my skin.”

“You talk sweetly, and I like to hear it.” Hal trails his fingers down the stubble of Ned’s cheek and searches his mind for something more than his wit can offer. He can give a speech to a thousand men, but he can barely romance one. “I wish I had your words,” he confesses.

“They’re yours if you want them, though I do believe ‘Come to bed, Ned,’ was pure poetry.”

Hal laughs. He’s happy, so happy right now. “Sweet you may be, but you tease me mercilessly.”

“I’m the tease?” Ned leans forward and kisses his him again. “Your mouth abandoned my cock.”

A sudden noise brings them both up straight as they hastily tuck themselves in. A mangy cat has flung itself at a rat in the thin alley and together they watch it tear the throat out of the pathetic creature.

It’s a silent return to the tavern, weaving through the revellers and up to Falstaff’s room without a word even to acknowledge their company. When the door is finally locked and bolted, Hal turns to see Ned sat on the edge of the bed.

“We were careless,” he says.

Careless is not a word Hal has ever associated with himself, even here in Eastcheap. “We were bold. Men will never achieve anything if they’re not that.”

Yet he was fearful. Ned needn’t know it, but he’d felt the sting of fear when they’d thought themselves caught. It is one thing for men to talk, another for them to witness the truth the way they’d seen him with Doll that night.

Ned lays back on the bed. He’s staring up at the ceiling, and Hal looks up to follow the shadows dancing in the light. It’s beautiful, unpredictable, the warm orange glow moving against the darkness, shifting with each flicker of flames in the hearth.

Ned says, “I wish I were more like you.”

“Pardon?”

Ned looks over at him. “You’re brave. You’ve got the whole tavern under your control and you do as you please.”

It didn’t please Hal to play with Doll and it doesn’t please him to see the lad he has fallen in love with praise him now when he feels weak with fear. “Every taverngoer in Eastcheap bows to me. The king better watch out,” he mutters.

“He’d worry if he knew you.”

“I believe you’re right, he would.”

“With good reason. I’d march with you, were I a braver man.” Ned props himself up on his elbows and smiles. “I’d wear your colours.”

Hal could see him in them. The deep purple of royalty, that’s what he’d make Ned wear. His colours and his ring, that would be his choice. “If only,” he says, joining Ned on the bed.

He expects Ned to shift over so he can lay down beside him but instead Ned takes his hand and pulls Hal down atop him. “If I weren’t such a coward...”

The kiss that follows shows no fear. Warm mouths and strong embraces and knowledge that now the door is bolted, makes such a difference to this. In the alley, they’d come together in lust and were startled apart by terror, but though Ned’s heart beats fast against Hal’s skin, he seems determined now.

First their clothes come off, and soon they’re both rubbing themselves off against each other’s moisture slicked skin. Hal’s senses are assaulted by the hot mouth pressed against his, the invading tongue tasting him, and the wiry body that bucks against his own larger form.

Perfect, he thinks, as his hands move from Ned’s shoulders, to his waist, to his arse. Perfect, as Ned’s cock nudges against his and they press closer together, the movements getting shorter and shallower as they both try to cover every inch of their cocks with each other’s skin.

And then, when they have kissed and rutted and they are hot and breathless, the building stops and each clings to the other until it is over.

Ned’s gulping down air a little faster than Hal is. He’s not used to physical labour, and rubbing together that way, rolling over each other, is hard work. Enjoyable work, but tiring none the less. Hal could sleep now, and he’ll happily stay the night if Ned will remain with him. The sun will still rise, and England will still stand even if Hal spends another night in bed with Ned. This time he is sober and able to fully enjoy the promise of it.

“That was perfect,” Hal says, pulling his lover to his side, sweat and heat be damned. “Shall we have a drink or just do it again?”

Ned chuckles beside him, snuggling into Hal’s neck and putting his hand onto the wet patch against his skin. “Let me rest a while first.”

“Of course. We have all night.”

Ned opens his mouth as if to protest, then pauses. “We do,” he agrees. “I’ll stay tonight.”

Hal feels better for the deciding. They’ll have hours together now, just the two of them and the bed and the sweet, slick of their bodies. If only they had grease, he’d have Ned so completely they’d surely have to marry afterward, because he’d make sure the lad was thoroughly spoiled for all other men. And then, if he wanted to, Ned could spoil him in return.

The thought makes him shiver. “I’ll call for beer,” he says, thinking that he’ll make a subtle request for the grease along with it, if Quickly comes to the door. If it’s anyone else, he’ll not ask.

So he leaves the bed and dresses, then steps out the door and shouts for service. Francis responds, scuppering Hal’s plans.

When he re-enters the room, two pots of beer in hand, Ned is sat up in the bed, the sheet draped across his lap. He reaches a hand out to take the beer, and with the other hand pats the space next to him in invitation. “Are we lucky, do you think?”

“In what way?”

Ned takes a sip of his drink and shrugs. “We can meet here and do as we please in this room.”

“Doll and her customers do as they please down in the bar.” And Francis wouldn’t think twice if her clients asked for grease.

“You would know,” Ned says. There’s no malice in his tone, it is merely the truth.

“Unluckily for me, yes, I know. If I had my way it have been you on my lap and none would care. That would be lucky.”

“Well, I for one don’t want to put on a diversion for the patrons of the Boar’s Head. I mean that we can meet here, in a tavern, with a bed. Men do. Even gentlemen do.”

They do, but it’s not without cost. “Yes we can meet at the Boar’s Head if we aren’t worried about soiling our reputations.”

“But there’s no one to stop us, that’s what I’m saying. No chaperone required for two men of good name to be alone together, even here. If we were women we couldn’t meet in such a place.”

“Women don’t lie together.” Hal has never heard such a ridiculous idea.

“What if you were a woman and I were a man? Or the other way around?”

“We would marry.”

“It’s not that easy.”

“I know.”

The conversation annoys Hal but he keeps his tone light. “Let’s not discuss this,” he says, “It only ires me to think I may want you but I can’t have you anywhere better than this.”

“Maybe you could, if I were braver.” Ned looks deadly serious about this so Hal comforts him rather than mock the idea, which he would have done if he’d heard it from any man but Ned.

“You are brave,” he said. “You wouldn’t be here with me now if you weren’t.”

“Need is a great motivator.”

Does Ned need him or just a body to rub against, a mouth to fuck, a hand on his prick? There was a time when Hal needed only a body, he won’t judge Ned for that.

“We have attended to your need, and you are still here.” He smiles at Ned. “Unlike last time.”

Ned takes another sip of his beer and then lays down on his front to place it on the floor by the bed. His naked behind is temptation itself, and though Hal knows he can’t delve inside it, the crack might be navigated thoroughly tonight. He can see himself pushing the cheeks tightly together as his cock runs through them.

“You have a perfect behind,” Hal says, rising up.

Ned tries to move but Hal places a hand on his arse to hold him down, then moves his cock to where he wants it to be. “Is this alright?” he asks. “I won’t enter you without something to smooth the way, but I’d like the touch, if you don’t mind.”

Ned looks over his shoulder at him. “It’s all right. I’m feeling braver now.”

“I’m glad.” Then Hal moves his hips.


	24. Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Four

Late nights and early morning’s tire Ned but he’s happier than he’s ever been. Spending the night with Hal is satisfying, and the way Hal looks at him when they wake next to each other is nice.

More than nice. So much more.

Is this getting harder or easier? Ned’s not sure. Going to bed with Hal is simple, he’s never been afraid of that, it’s the necessarily temporary nature of their time together that has given him both comfort and misery, but now he begins to feel less certain that it’s temporary despite the talk last night, or that it matters if Hal is as terrible as he says. He’s not a bad man, Ned’s certain of that, whatever he might do to fill his purse. He could not kiss so sweetly if that were true, nor have a heart to give Ned, and he offered it honestly, even if it was all he could give. Ned begins to think he maybe the liar between them, for though Hal knows his name, he doesn’t know his heart.

“Good morning,” Hal says, reaching up a hand to cup Ned’s face. His thumb grazes Ned’s cheek, pressing gently against the ridge of his cheekbone.

“Is it morning?” Ned asks, angling his face into the touch.

“I’m afraid so. The sun shows no regard for the wishes of you and I. It rises regardless.”

“Then it is morning?”

“Yes, and a good one, I hope?”

“A very good one.”

Hal grins at Ned and pulls him closer. Hal says nothing, but his arms are tight around Ned’s body, and his hands are soon going about their business again.

Finally hunger and thirst get them washed, dressed, and out into the streets looking for fresh bread. It’s later than they realised, and many men and women are out upon their business for the day. Hal greets many of them, and he can give many of those their names.

Then, a hundred yards away, Geoffrey steps out of the tailors and into view.

“Damn it all, that’s my brother,” Ned says, pulling Hal into a narrow side street. They peer back around the corner together and both watch Geoffrey as he walks down the street in a fine new green velvet suit.

“The man in green?” Hal asks, looking to Geoffrey, then to Ned. There’s a marked difference between them, given that Geoffrey has spent the night at home and gone out for new clothes—new to him, at any rate—while Ned spent the night in the filthy tavern bed, his clothes thrown into a heap on the floor, and it is obvious just to look at him.

“That’s him,” Ned says, cursing his brother silently. “I should go to him. He might be looking for me.” He reaches furtively for Hal’s hand and gives it a squeeze.

Hal looks around and then lifts it to his lips. “Will you be back at new moon?” he asks before planting the softest kiss.

“I’ll be back tonight, if you can meet me.”

“Not tonight. Soon, though. Can you read?”

“Of course.”

“Then I’ll write to you.”

Hal let go of Ned’s hand and left the alley, walking as casually as he had when they were together.

Ned leans against a building and watches him walk back towards the tavern. His lover is tall and broad shouldered, and cuts quite the figure from this perspective. Ned feels an odd sense of pride and ownership as he watches him go. Hal would be considered an attractive man by anyone who looked at him, yet out of all other men and women who might have him, Ned was the one he’d taken to.

“Edward Poins! Stay right there.” Geoffrey has spotted him and is marching down the road towards him now. Hal turns and smiles at Ned for a brief moment. Ned takes it as a final promise before his brother grabs hold of him and pulls him back into the alley.

“What is it, Geoffrey?” Ned asks wearily, rubbing a hand over his tired eyes. If Hal makes Ned lighter and happier, Geoffrey makes him heavy as lead.

“You didn’t come home last night.”

“Well observed,” Ned replies. “I went for one beer and it was stronger than anticipated. My head is pounding, please let me go home and to bed.”

“On any other day you’d go home, clean yourself up and get on with your duties. Today, however, my future wife comes to visit. You can go to bed and stay out of the way.”

“She’s accepted you then?”

“Her father has accepted, and we will be married before the month is out.” Geoffrey bounces on his heels. If he’s annoyed at Ned, his pleasure is at securing Anne’s hand is enough to temper his anger.

Ned’s inclined to be generous too. He wonders if his brother has fallen in love with the girl, and there’s a moment when he sees their similarities rather than the differences that have always bothered him. Perhaps, if he were the first son, and if he were inclined to women, he could find joy in the things that please Geoffrey. Were Geoffrey a second son, he might understand Ned’s dissolute behaviour.

Then Geoffrey says, “She brings a hundred and fifty acres, furniture, and raiments valued at more than a thousand pounds.” He’s almost dancing now. “And when we are established and Pearce is restored I will be at Westminster. I will meet Harry himself before the year is out.”

“That is your priority?” Ned’s too sickened by his brother to hide his disgust. Geoffrey isn’t like him, and he’s never had any need to marry for arrangement. They’re not blessed with the riches of Crassus but they’ve more than enough for most men and they’ve always been careful with money. Of the three Poins children, Geoffrey is the only one of them who could marry for love and he has squandered his chance. “I pity the poor girl. She’s going to be stuck in a marriage to you for money and there’s nothing she can do about it.”

Geoffrey shrugs. “I’m marrying her for money too. If we can curry favour at court then land and titles might follow.”

“But you get a choice. Father never pushed you to this the way hers will have. Obligation to her family will make her your whore.”

“Don't call my wife a whore,” Geoffrey barks. “She’ll be your sister soon and I will have lands of my own even as our father lives. You’ll treat me and my wife with the respect I deserve.”

Ned has already started. “I’m going home to bed. I’ll stay out of your way, you needn’t worry about that.”

Apparently his brother has nothing more to say to him because Ned walks away and Geoffrey doesn’t call him back. Good, Ned thinks. He can’t hold his tongue, not now.


	25. Chapter Twenty-Five

Chapter Twenty-Five

Hal knows his father will be furious when he arrives home, but he takes no delay on his return to the palace. Let his majesty say what he will for Hal has glutted himself on Ned Poins and nobody can take that from him now. A whole night together, not wasted on drink this time, but together in bed, in each other’s arms. A whole night and then a morning of it too.

Hal has been to heaven. Other men can guess what heaven will be like but Hal knows. It is a kiss from Ned Poins. It’s the lithe young body pressed against his own. It’s the way Ned smiles, the way he laughs, the way his eyes flutter close and his cheeks flush when Hal does any number of things to him. It’s the way he eagerly does them all in return.

Ned is an angel and their bed is heaven and he’ll never stumble over another prayer for the rest of his life. God made Ned in his own image, and Hal will give thanks for him every day.

He rides home, lost in the haze of a happy affair, and takes the steps two at a time when he reaches the palace. Bounding through the corridors to his apartment he greets everyone he meets with a smile. Surely the whole world can see he’s in love, and after some nagging uncertainty he’s beginning to really believe Ned could love him back.

Luck seems to be with him, because he makes it to his room without meeting his father. He calls for a tub and warm water and half an hour later he’s sinking into the steam of a bath, remembering the way Ned leaned back against him in their shared bath, writhing, arse against Hal’s cock, as Hal tossed him. Everything reminds him of Ned. Warm water on his skin, the scent of soap, even the linen he sits on. He knew all these sensations the first time they came together.

So he washes and dresses and when he looks the part of a prince again he leaves his room. Still he doesn’t see his father. He goes to the library and studies, then the armoury and practices with a sword for an hour. He talks to the guard: Harry hasn’t been there today. He goes to the kitchen to beg meat and fruit and small beer. He goes to John’s chambers but finds him absent too.

It is only when night falls that he contemplates visiting Eastcheap again. He told Ned he wouldn’t be there, but why waste the opportunity? If he rides now, he’ll be at the Poins estate in less than an hour and he could call himself a messenger boy, he needn’t arrive as a friend if it’ll cast suspicion.

Not long after the thought occurs he’s in the stables seeing to his own horse. It’s been an easy day, and he’s pleased to have come back to the palace for once. There’s no need to escape when it’s like this—easy, with all the benefits of royalty and none of the responsibilities.

“I thought you understood that your visits to the tavern are to stop.”

Hal’s body freezes, the smile drooping from his lips his only movement. He says nothing, but when his father remains silent too, he knows he must be the one to speak.

“Will you post a guard on my door to stop me leaving?” he asks, turning to look the king in the eye.

“I could, if I wanted to. But I want to trust you, because if I don’t now, no one will when you’re king.”

“Then trust me. I go to the taverns precisely to meet my future subjects. How can I lead the English if I don’t know what’s in their hearts?”

“Plenty have died for you, doesn’t that tell you enough about them?”

Hal learnt about the honour and bravery of Englishmen on the battlefield, but he learnt little of their lives compared to what he saw at the Boar’s Head. “Dead men have no voice.”

“What would your young man say to that?”

Old King Harry has always seemed such a noble man to Hal. He took the throne, but he did what he thought he ought to do and he’d have gone to the crusades if he could. The way he speaks now, however, the threat in his words, sends a chill through Hal and he sees what Richard must have—that Bolingbroke is as capable of menace as goodness. It’s in Hal too, he shouldn’t be surprised at this, yet he’d never really believed it would be turned on him.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Hal says, raising his chin defiantly.

Henry opens his arm wide in a gesture of submission, as if he has lunged but at the wrong target. Then his face grows serious, his hands wring together, and he mutters, “Edward Poins.”

Hal doesn’t tremble. He’s terrified of his father right now but he won’t show it—the man raised him to show no fear and in that regard Hal refuses to let him down. He may be a disappointment, but he’d never let Harry see he’s a coward. “Who is Edward Poins?” he asks simply, as if he’s never heard the name.

“He is the lad who leads you astray and a problem I must deal with. Make no mistake, I will deal with him.”

“Not Poins,” Hal says, every desire to stand his ground forgotten in a moment to protect Ned. “He is of good family and excellent character—I am the rotten apple and he is an innocent friend. Well, as innocent as any man who visits the stews can be. He isn’t like me—I would he were, believe me I would so much that he were, but he is not. Don’t punish him for simply knowing me.”

“That’s exactly what I intend to do if you ever see him again.”

“Please, he is a friend, nothing more. I even think he might be good for me, for I grow more like him by the day. I want to be like him.” That part is no lie. Hal would love to be like Ned, with no responsibilities, no need to marry, sire an heir, or any of the other things Hal must do with his life.

His father the king stares at him and Hal wishes the old man were dead. A moment later he takes it back. He wishes his father cared about him as much as he does the crown, and there’s an easier way. Harry needn’t die for Hal to be free. He could make this easy.

“Please,” Hal says, “please don’t hurt him. You are not a cruel king, I know you won’t condemn an innocent man.”

Harry frowns at him. It’s a blatant appeal to his vanity and Hal hopes he’s not offended by it but it’s too late now.

“We’ll be paying close attention to Poins, and if we hear any different we’ll talk about him again.”

“Of course,” Hal says, “and thank you, thank you, father.”

“If the friendship is good for you, so be it. But let it be good for you on these terms: If you shirk a single duty, it’s over. You have nowhere to be on Sunday afternoons, so use that time as you wish. You have your freedom all week, but if you sot yourself on cheap sack and betray my trust, you’ll lose it.”

“I understand.”

“I hope you do.”

He’s gone a moment later, leaving Hal to unsaddle his horse alone.


	26. Chapter Twenty-Six

Chapter Twenty-Six

The days are long. Geoffrey is organising his wedding, Nell comforts Anne who seems less and less thrilled by her impending marriage, and Ned waits for his letter. He’s been to the Boar’s Head twice and found Hal absent. Quickly sent for him the first day, but he didn’t come. The second time, she didn’t bother.

But Hal had said he would write, and on Sunday afternoon a letter arrives with Poins name on it.

It’s written on vellum and sealed with red wax, the letter H pressed into it. “It’s to be handed to no one but Master Ned Poins,” the messenger says, clinging to it for dear life as Geoffrey tries to snatch it from him. Ned darts across the hall and takes it with thanks. He’s reaching for his purse but the boy doesn’t wait for payment.

“Well?” Geoffrey demands as they all stand looking at Ned. “Who is it from?”

“A friend, I think.”

“The one who keeps you out all night?”

Ned waves the letter at him. “Look at this. You see, I told you he is of good standing.”

“Open it, then. Tell us what it says.”

Ned peels back the seal and unrolls the small strip of paper. To his great relief, and only a small amount of disappointment, it says nothing but ‘Now’. “It’s an invitation to meet him.”

“Where?”

“At Quickly’s tavern.”

“Oh yes, a man of most excellent standing,” Geoffrey mutters.

“It is a place known to us both, that’s all.”

“It’s known to all, its so infamous.”

“Leave him be,” Nell snaps at Geoffrey. She approaches Ned cautiously and holds her hand out for the letter. Ned gives it to her, knowing she can’t read. “Will you meet him?” she asks.

“Yes. I’d like a drink and talk about something other than a wedding.”

She hands it back and turns away. “I should go find Anne. Someone should be with her at all times to make sure she doesn’t throw herself in the river.”

Geoffrey holds his hand out to take the letter but Ned is tucking it into his jacket. “I’ll be back when I’m back.”

“You’ll be back at a sensible time. I’ll not have you embarrassing me at dinner with Pearce tonight.”

“Best I stay away entirely then.”

“I mean it, Ned. One rumour could ruin this family.”

Let it, Ned thinks. Nell doesn’t want the sort of good reputation that will see her sold off to the highest bidder, Ned has little need beyond his allowance, and he’s beginning to realise there are other ways to make money, ways that would allow him to keep a man like Hal by his side. And Geoffrey... Ned doesn’t like Geoffrey enough to care about his reputation anymore.

So he dresses himself in his peach-coloured tights and goes out to be a disreputable gentleman. He even wonders if he could secure a larger allowance from Geoffrey just by threatening mischief he doesn’t get. If Geoffrey is so keen on the Poins name, let him pay for it.

Hal’s there when he arrives at the tavern, cup in hand, mid jest with Falstaff. Ned watches him from the doorway, sees a spirited young man who appears to be there for pleasure today. Ned stands in the door until people begin to complain of the draft and Hal sees him.

“Poins! I’ve missed you,” Hal shouts loudly and proudly as he crosses the bar.

“I’ve missed you too. It’s been a long week.”

“I’d have come sooner if I could but...” Hal frowns and Ned is certain he’s searching for an excuse but none comes. “I’m sorry. I wish I could tell you.”

“It’s all right. I realised it doesn’t matter what you are out there, it only matters who you are in here with me.”

“I am who I always was with you.”

“Good.”

Hal forces his cup into Ned’s hand, and throwing an arm around his shoulder, walks him to his table. “Give me news of you and your family. Don’t hold back, I want to hear it all.”

“Really?” Hal has never been much interested in them before, but they’re in public, making polite conversation. It’s an acceptable use of tongues that will be put to much better work later. “My brother is to be married,” Ned says, sitting down while Hal waves to Francis for a drink.

“A happy event!”

“She’s doubling the size of our estate, so yes, a very happy one as far as he’s concerned. I doubt she’s thrilled at the thought.”

Hal, oddly practical, says, “He’ll be a man of consequence.”

“Just what he’s always wanted. He’s already dressing for court.”

They’re not touching, but Ned can see the way Hal stiffens at the word court. “Henry’s court?”

“No, the French one,” Ned teases, wondering what crimes his lover might have committed against the crown. “Of course Henry’s court. He’s marrying Anne Pearce.”

“Her?”

“You know her?”

“I know of her.” Hal’s reply is far too hasty. They both know she might be the key to revealing Hal’s secrets. If he could buy her silence, she wouldn’t be marrying Geoffrey.

“The introduction to court is part of her dowry,” Ned explains. “I doubt Geoffrey will attract the interest of anyone important.

“Has he anything to offer the crown?”

“We’ve a bit of money but no skills. My brother is a fool with plentiful dreams and no way to fulfil them. Old Harry will send him packing the way he sent my father packing before him. We are not meant to mix with royalty.”

Hal chews on his lip. If they were discussing something more serious, Ned would swear his lover looked nervous, but this so beyond the realms of possibility that to Ned it’s ridiculous.

“Is your brother honest?” Hal asks.

“As honest as any man of his ilk.” It seems a nicer way of saying no.

“I am sure he’ll find some sympathy.”

They lapse into silence and drink their beer. Hal seems lost in thought, though only a minute before he looked eager enough to hear all about Ned’s news. Ned watches the crowd, who seem very careful not to watch him in return. They’ll all have something to say on the silence, he’s sure. Best to keep talking.

“It’s disgusting, buying and selling women to marriage,” he says.

“Hmm?” Hal replies.

“It’s disgusting.”

“What is?”

“The buying and selling of women for marriage.”

Hal frowns at him again and Ned realises he’s said the wrong thing, though he knows in his heart it is right.

“Many men don’t have a choice in the matter either,” Hal argues, “but they do what they must do. Women are perfectly capable of suffering through the same without complaint.”

“Geoffrey has a choice.”

“How could he? He’s the first son, it is on him to protect his land and strengthen it if he can. He has no choice but to make the best decision for his family. If he believes the connections will help better your position it is his duty to make them.”

Hal the wastrel sits before him arguing that men have duties they must perform. Ned can hardly believe his ears, but he reminds himself that they’re here, in public together instead of upstairs in bed. Hal might be performing a duty to his family now, in a strange sort of way.

“What about you?” Hal asks, when Ned has no retort. “Will you join him at court?”

“Certainly not.”

Hal sits up straight, raises his voice and asks, “Is the king not worth your time?”

Every man in the tavern looks at them. Doll, who is sat on a man’s lap, her dress undone, tits ungirt, turns to look at them. Quickly, jug poised beneath the tap in the barrel, looks at them. They wait.

Ned stares back at the sea of faces, then to Hal who appears deadly serious. Ned’s never seen him like this, and there’s something unnerving about him, as if the Hal he knows has turned at a moment’s notice.

“Well?” Hal asks.

“I’m not fool enough to think a single person at the court would want anything to do with me, let alone that king himself would give me time. I’m no one.”

“You judge them too harshly, though I think you may be right about the king.”

There’s a murmur of approval from the crowd, but Hal looks around the room as if surrounded by enemies. They cower beneath his gaze.

Ned will not be cowed. “Geoffrey will humiliate himself and come home and wish he’d chosen a rich merchant’s daughter instead of a poor landowner’s one, lady or not. That will be the end of the Poins family’s reputation at court for another generation.”

He stands from the table and looks about. “I’d rather not be the evening’s entertainment. Can we argue upstairs?” He looks to Falstaff and Quickly but neither of them offer a room. They look to Hal for permission, as if he owns the tavern.

Hal nods and the tavern returns to its usual chatter while they’re led upstairs. This time Quickly takes them to a small cell upstairs, that has nothing but a bed and a bucket in the corner. Ironically it’s for prostitution, yet Ned thinks people are less likely to make assumptions in there as they’re known to visit Falstaff’s room.

“We’re ruined already, it seems,” Ned says, leaning back against the door as he closes it behind them. There’s no fire in the room, only a small stove, which isn’t lit, and the grey light from the window. It’s not yet sunset, but it’s not far off it.

Eventually they’ll want candles. For now Ned just wants to forget how they are supposed to behave in public and do what they will in each other’s embrace. He steps toward Hal, slips his arms around Hal’s neck and stretches up onto his toes to kiss his lover on the nose.

“How long do you think we can make them believe we argued?” he asks playfully.

But Hal pushes Ned away, gently, but with enough force Ned knows to withdraw.

“You’ll have to choose one day. You will have to choose a wife for money or position instead of love. There’s no escaping it.”

Oh, but there is. Ned has had a lot to think about since he first laid eyes on Hal. “I’ve made my decision.”

“And what’s that?”

“To be thoroughly disreputable with you.”

Hal doesn’t look as pleased as he ought to for a man who claims he’s in love.

“Be careful,” he says, sitting himself down on the bed. “I’m not worth throwing away a good reputation.”

“What do I care for my good name? I used to think it was important for Geoffrey and Nell but neither of them deserve marriage the way it’s brokered. I’d do Nell a favour to ruin her chances with the highest bidder.”

“One day you may need a good name.” 

“I care for nothing but the present. Here. With you.” Ned sinks to his knees before Hal. “With you in this bed and then whatever comes afterward.”

He runs his hands up Hal’s thighs. Hal grabs his hands and squeezes them tight enough to hurt but Ned doesn’t let him see the pain for fear he’ll let go and they’ll never touch again.

“Hal, what’s wrong tonight?”

“Why throw away a good opportunity because you think the king will insult you?”

“He won’t insult me. I’ll never meet him, it’s a fool’s errand.”

“You might meet the prince.”

“Hang him for all I care.”

Now Hal lets go, thrusting him away as he does so, but Ned is knelt in such a position that he cannot be pushed too far.

“Don’t damn a man you don’t know!” Hal barks. “Don’t you dare speak against him or any of his family! He is a man just like you, you don’t know what he suffers.”

“I don’t care to know him. Aren’t you listening to what I’m saying?”

“What you’re saying is treasonous.” Hal rises from the bed, runs his hands through his hair. “Do you really hate the prince so much that you would see him hanged? What has he ever done to you?”

“Nothing. Hal—”

“He could be your family’s key to greatness. If you could appear above reproach, if you could be an asset to him, to his family, you could have a lifetime of comfort but you’d throw it back at him. You’re an ungrateful swine. You don’t deserve royal patronage. You don’t deserve to be a citizen of this great country.”

“It’s idle talk,” Ned snaps, angry that nothing could turn into so big an argument. He ought to leave, his hunch about Hal had been right, he was no good, and no good could come of this. Yet he has fallen in love, and he has changed, Hal has changed him for better or worse. He cannot return to a life half lived now, even if Hal wants him to.

“Hal, you are a fool if you cannot understand what I am saying. I care not for the crown because I care only for you. For you! Whoever you may be, however high born and low fallen, however hard that must have been for you, I worship you. I can offer allegiance to no other man, no matter his goodness or greatness. Falstaff might as well be king and this his court for all I care. I’ll have none of anything but you.”

This seems to get through. Hal’s anger drains as quickly as it arrived as he leans himself against the wall. “What if you were king?” he asks. “What would you do with a man like you?”

“Nothing. Men like me would never come to my attention.”

“They say the prince frequents bawdy houses.”

“And so he should because he’ll be a better man for it but if he’s not you, what’s it worth to me?”

Finally Hal smiles. He reaches out to brush Ned’s cheek with the back of his hand, so gentle, a lovers touch. “I’m serious,” he says softly. “Please don’t sully the Poins name. You don’t know how important the opportunities court might present you are. If you ruin yourself you’ll never get them back.” 

“I don’t intend to ruin every Poins in England for three generations. You are Hal, I shall be merely Ned. There’s many a Ned turned bad, no one will suspect it is me.”

“You cannot be anonymous the way I have been to you, you’ll lose everything.” Hal sighs. “There’s something you should know about me.”

“I don’t care to hear it” Ned says, raising a finger to Hal’s lip. “I’ve chosen you. I’ve chosen _you_. I don’t care to be respectable, I don’t care for money or position, or renown or anything you valued before you lost it. I’d rather be with you.”

Then Hal’s mouth covers his own and he can say no more.


	27. Chapter Twenty-Seven

Chapter Twenty-Seven

Some poisons are sweet. Hal knows this as he kisses Ned, knows he’d be better off giving him the truth now. Poins should go to court, appear above reproach, take an interest in all the young ladies, and then fall into Hal’s bed at night.

But if he tells him now, this will never be the same again. He’ll never be so completely accepted as a man or as a lover. Power is heady for the wielder, but the weak fear it, and Ned would have much to fear if he knew the truth. Not just fear. The devil might take him, greed being all too familiar a look in men’s eyes. Hal sees it everywhere he goes some nights but he’s never seen it in Ned. He’d like to believe his lover is better than that, but he’s just a man. Hal wouldn’t even blame Ned for it, but it would spoil what they share.

One more afternoon, he thinks, just one where he believes me to be whatever lowly villain he has painted me as. If only it were true and he were no one. Hal wants the throne as it is his right, but it comes with consequences. He’s always known that.

One more afternoon. One more afternoon of Ned believing he is some wastrel. One more afternoon when they come together as equals. One more afternoon when Hal can say he lived as all other men do.

It is a good afternoon. The hours are a blur of lips and limbs. Hal asks for wine and sweetmeats and they’re acquired and brought to their room, consumed in bed. Doll must ply her trade amongst the drinkers or in the alley, and during the latter they hear her below their window and giggle while she’s there, howling with laughter when she’s gone.

Sundays like this will be sweet. They won’t last forever, but as the night closes in, Hal decides to just have one or two more before he reveals the truth to Ned. The lad won’t mind when he discovers the truth, for as he said, he has nothing against the crown, but Hal means more to him than any man on Earth. That Hal and the crown are almost one and the same thing matters not. Who could be disappointed to discover the person they love is in a position to offer them wealth and importance?

Soon day is night, and they leave in high spirits. Ned waits while Hal fetches his horse and they walk through the streets together talking and laughing, leading the horse beside them. As the last of the suns light fades away and they reach the fields beyond London, Hal feels Ned’s knuckles brush against his hand, and then they’re strolling along beside each other again, not a care in the world, as if they’re not in love.

When they’re sure they’re alone on the road, cautious but not fearful of the dark, Hal asks, “Did you enjoy the afternoon?”

“Yes.”

“The let us make Sunday afternoon’s our time.”

“I’d like that.”

They walk in silence for a while. The clouds move, obscuring the moon and the thick band of stars that streaks across the sky. When the night seems black as pitch, Hal feels Ned’s hand again, this time clasping his own.

“I love you, Hal.”

He knows, but they’re wonderful words to hear. “If I never hear those words again at least I’ve heard them from you. Thank you.”

“And you still love me?”

Ned sounds so serious, Hal cannot help but love him all the more for it.

“I adore you. I... I haven’t got the words. I wish I could speak sweetly like you.”

“It’s honey,” Ned says, leaning against him. “You are all honey.”

They kiss again and there’s nothing so sweet as that.


	28. Chapter Twenty-Eight

Chapter Twenty-Eight

It would be a long week without Hal, but Ned keeps himself busy. If Hal’s “business” keeps them apart then Ned must join him at whatever he does and sink low enough that Hal won’t care to protect his reputation

Ned’s well spoken of, he’s heard it himself, but he’s not a man of great importance. A second son, and a fickle one at that, he has been idle for too long as he helped his brother with their estate. It’s time he helped himself.

Eastcheap has enough scoundrels in it that he should be able to find help, but none will speak a word to him about the pickings available around London. Like Hal’s history, it remains unknown to Ned where the money lies, but he soon finds out where the robber gangs are based and given instructions on how best to avoid them. The locals are keen to keep him safe, he notes, even if they don’t like him. Hal’s influence again, no doubt.

Most of the roads pose a threat at night. Normally he’ll cross the fields if he stays out late, and he’s always made it home, boots muddied but alive and with his purse on his belt. He’s not looking for trouble now, just a free spot where he can set up alone.

The next day he goes to Westminster and sits by the riverside eating his lunch and watching the comings and goings of the palace. If he’s going to be a thief it seems better to fill his pockets there than anywhere else. The rewards will be far greater from the palace coffers and whatever he can get will be less likely to be missed.

Getting in is easy as the guards let him through with a group of petitioners, and when he moves away from them he’s well enough dressed not to rouse suspicion. The palace is swarming with servants, visitors, members of the court, and he fully intends to use Pearce’s name if he’s questioned about being there. If he sees Pearce he’ll say he was coming to ask about Geoffrey’s introduction.

It’s not his first time in the palace, his father having a little business there ten years or more ago. He went along, just a boy but knowing the power of the place. But the king cared not for anything the Poins family had to say and certainly nothing they had to offer and they’d not returned. That his father was so keen on Geoffrey’s ascension to the nobility was laughable, but he supposes the old man hoped to look the king in the eye if he ever receives his own introduction. Ned imagines Harry wouldn’t remember him at all.

Ned’s in the Great Hall when a guard approaches and asks his business. Though he gives a good answer, Pearce is away from the court, and he’s told to leave. He does so without making a scene, empty handed but thrumming with excitement at his own audacity. If only Hal were with him now, for he is ready to rut.


	29. Chapter Twenty-Nine

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“Who told him?”

The stool crashes against a beam and the building groans.

“Who?”

This time it smashes into a table and two legs come off.

“One of you will tell me what Ned Poins was doing at the palace or I will have the guards arrest every one of you and burn this place to the ground.”

Hal won’t. He couldn’t even if he wanted to, his father would refuse the guards. But he doesn’t want to. He doesn’t want to holler and accuse and to appear so thoroughly base but the control he has when he’s sober has departed with Ned and he is furious.

The patrons of the Boar’s Head look terrified but none of them speaks, and the wenches have no voice either. Even Quickly, who owns the tavern, has nothing to say. She looks to Falstaff who is sat at his favourite table, dinner and sack before him.

“Yes,” Falstaff says as he tears the middle from his hunk of bread and dips it into his sack, “whatever man has betrayed you to Poins deserves to be strung from the nearest tree. Your privacy, your honour, your respect, all denied. And for what?”

He doesn’t offer a suggestion. Money, Hal assumes, though he knows Poins hasn’t much of it. Perhaps the promise of some later, when Ned has filled his pockets via their friendship.

No. That’s not possible. He’s not thinking clearly. How would Ned know that the information could be worth anything? And Hal offered to tell Ned just days before and he refused. Why now would he ask around and go to the palace?

“For what?” Hal says, looking at the men around him. “What has Poins been asking?”

Now there’s a clamour of voices. Nothing about Hal, just about the local gangs and where they ply their trade. Nothing about the palace, though he was interested to know about any thieves on the roads out of Westminster. Nothing about Hal, no nothing about Hal, none of them would ever say a word about Hal.

They’re pathetic, but they’re Englishmen. Even the lowliest, most cowardly sort, are still his men and they’ve kept his secret from all but the king himself. He believes them, even Falstaff who is a born liar.

He’s ashamed too, to have shown his vicious, nasty streak. That comes out when he’s drunk amongst this sort, they bring out the worst in him, but strong yields need shit to grow, and he grows even now.

He quietens them with a movement of his hand and they all sit in silence and watch him closely, all except for Falstaff who eats cheese and onions and apples and doesn’t seem to notice the mood.

“I’m satisfied,” Hal says and they visibly relax. Suddenly the tavern has a party atmosphere again and they’re drinking and making merry with a false gaiety Hal has never seen.

He calls to Francis for a drink and takes it to Falstaff’s table. The knight looks across at him and offers a piece of his dinner to Hal who politely refuses. They sit together in silence for a while, Hal grateful for a companion who doesn’t attempt to fill the air with meaningless drivel. Falstaff can be oddly astute on occasion, which contributes to Hal’s affection for him, strange as he may be.

Eventually Falstaff finishes his meal and swallows down his sack. He looks to Hal and says, “So, you’re satisfied?”

“Yes.”

“With our good fellows, or with young master Poins?” This is too close to his father’s behaviour and Hal is shocked for a moment before Falstaff continues, “Poins may not have any idea who you are, he may have business of his own at the palace.”

Hal had considered this, their talk on Sunday still ringing in his ears as he ordered the guards to speak to Ned and remove him. The brother, Geoffrey, sought audience, and Ned had been chastised for his idle talk about the crown. Perhaps that had brought him to the palace? It certainly seemed a more compelling reason now his paranoia has settled.

“Perhaps you’re right.”

“Of course I’m right. Modest though I try to be, I’ve heard it said I’d make a fine advisor as I’ve a nose for the heart of the matter. Poins doesn’t think you’re the Prince. His wit’s as thick as Tewkesbury mustard, it wouldn’t occur to him you’re his better. He thinks very low of you, and very highly of the way he’s cast you.”

“What are you implying?”

“Nothing,” Falstaff says, but he doesn’t reject his words, merely twists them to new meaning. “Poins knows you not and likes you nevertheless, worry not about that.”

“I’m not worried.”

“Good. More wine, Francis!” Falstaff shouts.

More wine for Falstaff and more for Hal to think about.


	30. Chapter Thirty

Chapter Thirty

Ned thinks it his overactive imagination when he first sees Hal amidst the trees, but when he looks again and Hal waves to him, he bounds across the garden, leaps the fence and plunges into the forest. Hal’s moving back away from the house but he lets Ned catch him and soon they’re in each other’s arms, pressed against a tree.

“You shouldn’t come here,” Ned says between kisses, but he doesn’t mean it. “If we’re caught...”

Who cares if they’re caught? Then Hal will have to take Ned away and they’ll be together every night.

Hal still his hands, catching his wrists and holding them tight. “If we’re caught...” he says gently, then pulls Poins in for another kiss.

Eventually it ends because it has to and they walk further into the woods. It’s late afternoon and still light, anyone could come through foraging but they’re mercifully alone right now, clinging to each other still as they walk.

Hal says, “Someone told me they saw you at the palace.”

“Who?”

“Francis. He was on an errand in Westminster and saw you. He told me when I asked if you’d visited the tavern.”

Ned hadn’t seen Francis, but he didn’t doubt Hal when he said he was there. “I went to have a look.”

“At what?”

“The wealth.”

Hal’s eyes widen. He laughs a little, the kind of laugh a man might give when he’s been wrongfooted by a comment but wishes to appear at ease. “You think it will be yours one day?”

“I think if I am to live off lightening purses I should take from a man who can afford it.”

Now the smile is more genuine. Hal stops and takes Ned’s hand, looks down into his eyes and asks, “You want to be kept by a king?”

“In a manner of speaking.” 

“So I may buy your drinks now?”

“I’ll buy the drinks. I’ll buy them every day if you’ll let me.” 

Hal drops Ned’s hand but it doesn’t fall far and Hal quickly takes it up again. “Exactly how will you afford to be my constant companion?”

“Let me have my secrets just as you have had yours.”

“No. I must know every part of you.”

“One day you will if Quickly ever sees sense and leaves a pot of grease in one of the rooms.”

It’s a quip, but Hal nods. “I’ve been thinking the same.” He reaches first for Ned’s cock, the other hand moving towards his arse, but seems to lose interest as quickly as he begins. “Are you really intent on a life of crime?” he asks.

Ned is intent on nothing but Hal and will make no apology for it. “We’ll work the same trade. Why not tell me what you do when we’re apart. Are you an assassin? A blackmailer, surely, with a purse like yours?”

Hal’s nose wrinkles in distaste and Ned wishes he’d called him an old-fashioned thief and nothing worse, but it’s said now and he cannot take it back.

“I have led you too far astray from the truth. I am a soldier and—” Hal hesitates but presses forward with what can only be a half truth “—I’m a man of impeccable family who goes drinking and wenching in the worst tavern in England. I am frowned upon for shirking my duties because I’d rather go to town and tumble you. I am not a criminal, unless you count it criminal to fall in love with a man rather than a woman, and I certainly do not.”

“Well I am a second son to a wealthy man who will not spend a penny if he doesn’t have to,” Ned retorts. “He has never invested any of it in me. I cannot afford to be with you every day and night without an income of my own and this will be it.”

“I will keep you.”

“I don’t want to be kept.”

Hal shakes his head. His fingers slip between Ned’s and he squeezes his hand softly. “Let me be clear. I cannot have a thief amongst my close acquaintances but I can have followers and men of good character will be encouraged. This is a way for us to be together.”

“So I’ll be as good as your whore?”

“You’ll be as good as a wife to me.”

Ned hadn’t thought of himself as a wife. He’d imagined marriage, of course, before he met Hal, saw himself as a husband who would be a good friend to his wife one day. He’d not hound her into his bed, nor keep a rein on her. She’d do as she pleased, he thought, and he would do the same. Strange to think that Hal had looked upon him and seen someone similar, but he fears Hal is thinking on different lines.

“And if I wish to be the husband sometimes?”

“When we’re together with others, we are nothing but friends but when we’re alone, we’ll play the parts we wish, whatever they may be.” Hal kisses him again and Ned thinks he can be very persuasive when he does such things.

They hear fallen branches break and leaves shuffle and move apart before they’re seen by whoever shares the forest with them today. When they look, Ned sees it’s no one, just Hal’s horse who has wandered after them.

“So who are you?” Ned asks, thinking of the families that might be able to afford such a costly mount for their son. Hal claims to be a soldier, and if he’s a good one he might have bought the animal himself, but he has a reputation amongst the villains and even old Pearce thinks him wild.

“Come to court with your brother, please. Then you’ll know.”


	31. Chapter Thirty-One

Chapter Thirty-One

Geoffrey. That’s the name of the elder Poins. Hal greets him amiably and watches his father pay great interest to him. He’s married into the Pearce family, has he; he’s got a sister, how charming, and a brother, how nice; and wouldn’t it be a pleasure to meet them. New blood in the court. A welcome addition. What does Geoffrey think about rebellions, and France, and crusades? Tell us more about the brother.

Their cousins are dumbfounded. Percy can hardly contain himself. Geoffrey Poins has no place at the court but they find themselves here with him, the nobody who arrived with nothing and offers no more, not even wit.

Hal smiles benignly throughout, watching his father with a mix of pity and pride. That his father loves him he can’t question, that he trusts him, well, how could he? Most interesting is the way he looks to Hal whenever “Edward Poins,” is mentioned, as if he’ll learn something damning from the set of Hal’s jaw or the glint in his eyes.

Ned has not come. Hal can’t blame him, knowing that it may never have been in his control. He’ll have to come now, and Hal will find him and they’ll have it out at last.

Later that night he sits reading in his apartments, waiting for his father to knock. The old man finally does so at gone midnight but Hal wearily calls for him to come in regardless of the hour.

“Urgent business?” he asks, stifling a yawn, but refusing to leave the comfort of his cushioned chair even for the king.

“I came to ask what you thought of Poins?”

“I prefer his brother.”

Harry nods: it’s nothing he wouldn’t expect after all. “And when will the brother be arriving?”

“You’d better ask Geoffrey for he’ll know better than I.”

“He says next week.”

Ned and his sister will need dressing for the occasion, Hal would expect no less. “Then it will be so.”

“But you’ll see him before?”

“I don’t know.” Hal stands and moves to his bedchamber door to signal the meeting is over. “Goodnight father.”

The king doesn’t leave, doesn’t even turn to signal that this is indeed over. He needn’t say a word, for Hal knows he isn’t done. After a tense moment, Hal returns to his seat.

“If you like the lad, there’s nothing to be done about it. I won’t beat it out of you, you might as well suffer with it. If Poins likes you, he’s gone, and I’ll not hesitate to have him beaten senseless. You understand?”

“We are nothing more than friends, I assure you.”

His father sighs. “I hope that it true.”

The next morning, Hal rides out to the Poins estate and waits in the forest again. The last two times he’d gone there on a whim, needing to see Ned more than he valued discretion. Now he’s had time to think, and he recognises the generosity in his father’s warning. He’s been given time to mould Ned into what he needs to be, and he’ll use it wisely.

Ned doesn’t appear, but when Geoffrey and his wife leave the house, Hal is bold enough to approach the door. A harried young woman answers the door, too well dressed for this sort of work, Hal thinks, and seems taken aback when she sees him.

“Greetings, my lady?” he asks. The Poins are well off, but only the very wealthiest men dress their servants in black.

“You’re here for Ned,” she says.

Blunt, Hal thinks. She knows something of what the world is like, even if she is a lady.

“Is he home?”

“Yes, hold on. Come in.”

She’s nervous and doesn’t meet his eye as he steps inside. They walk through the hall and into the parlour where Ned is sat by the bed spooning porridge into an old man’s mouth.

“What is it, Nell?” he asks, not looking away from his work.

“You’ve a visitor.”

At this he glances over, fumbling the dish when he sees Hal looking at him. “Hal! What are you doing here?”

“I’ve business in town and thought to stop here on my way and see how you are.”

“I’m well.” Ned stands and Nell goes to him and takes the bowl from his hands. He thanks her and then says, “Hal, this is my sister Eleanor. Eleanor, this is Hal, a friend of mine.”

“A pleasure to meet you, sir,” she mumbles, sitting down on Ned’s stool.

Next Ned introduces his father. It is clear the man has been stricken by apoplexy, his face droops to the right, and his little speech is slurred. His eyes are bright and clear, however. Hal is all too sure the man knows exactly what sort of friends they might be.

“Forgive me,” Hal says, unable to understand what the old man is saying to him.

He looks to Ned, who shrugs, then Nell, who says, “He recognises you.”

“I’m sorry, I don’t know him.”

The old man speaks again, and she says, “Westminster.”

“Everyone in this family is obsessed with Westminster,” Ned mutters. He leaves the room, and Hal bows quickly but respectfully and follows him around a corner and up a tight staircase to small hallway. From there he’s led through a flimsy door to a room with two palettes and some simple furniture.

“This is your bedchamber,” Hal says, looking around. The palettes are good quality, tightly strung and each with a mattress, but there’s nothing luxurious about them, nor the furniture. The room has an earthy, masculine smell that’s oddly enticing, however, and Hal immediately likes the space.

“Not anymore. Geoffrey sleeps here with Anne now they are married, and Eleanor and the maids share the other room. I spend my nights in the hallway now.”

It’s easier to sneak out, Hal thinks, but he says nothing of the sort for he knows it’s also a place with no privacy. “The purse is kept tight here.”

“I told you, not a penny wasted.”

“You had enough in your coffers to rescue the Pearce. You must be well off.”

“I’m sure we are, but there’s no one to impress. We are not important enough to attract the interest of anyone worth showing off to, so we live as if we were yeomanry.”

Ned pushes a trunk along the floor until it is up against the door. He signals to Hal he wants help lifting another, but Hal declines.

“I can’t stay, not for long. I’ve come to talk to you about what will be expected when you go before the king. I’ve told them some things about you.”

“All good, I hope?”

Good from many a man’s perspective, not their own. “I’ve given you a clear conscience and a love of the fairer sex.”

“Ah.”

“And you are to live up to these expectations. You’re my friend, they’ll suspect you’re no good if they can’t see otherwise for themselves.”

Ned attempts to lift the trunk again. He hoists up one side and tries to drag it along the floor, but it seems too heavy and he drops it with a loud bang. “Why do you stay amongst people who judge you so harshly?” he demands. “Why live somewhere that I must play a part if I’m to know you?”

“I have no choice.”

“We always have a choice.”

“I don’t.”

“You are the only man in England then.”

Sometimes if feels that way, but being amongst Falstaff and his ilk has taught Hal a lot about the problems all men face. “I am not. A little money and a degree of privilege blinkers you, my love.”

“It is a very little money.” Ned sits down on the trunk and sighs. “I don't know if I can be the man they’re expecting. I’ve never..." he trails off, nose wrinkling slightly at the thought. “I’ve seen it, in the Boar’s Head, I know how it is done but I’m not sure I can do it.”

"They will not expect you to consummate a marriage before their eyes, just to show a healthy interest. You can flirt with girls?"

"I suppose."

"And you can admire the maids as they walk past?"

"I can do it subtly, if you want."

"All the better.” Hal grins, thinking it will be funny to see a wandering eye on Ned for he has surely never looked at another since they met. “You can tell tales of your conquests."

"I told you, I have no conquests.”

"Then let me share some of mine.”

Ned looks up at him curiously and Hal signals he should stand. Together they lift the trunk and put it on top of the first, blocking the door. They’re heavy enough that it would take a good shove to get the door open, which would give them time to stop whatever it is they’re about to begin.

“So, what should I say?” Ned asks. He’s smiling. He’s ready for the lesson Hal is about to teach him.

Hal takes his hand and moves him to the wall by the window. He leans Ned back against a beam and places his hands on his waist.

“Waist, slender,” he says, running his hands up Ned’s body and round to his chest. “Breasts, full. Nipples, hard.” His fingers search, finding the hardening peaks as they appear. Then he’s moving his hands down again, down and back until he has a possessive grip on the sides of Ned’s arse. “Hips, curved.” Then he’s moving again, undoing the knot on the belt of Ned’s britches.

Ned is hard, of course. Hal’s never known him any other way when they’re like this together. They’ve met like this in a few places now, and he never fails to rise up despite the potential dangers.

Hal tugs the linen down and sees Ned’s cock. The end’s already wet. “Loins, dewy.” Hal runs a hand up and down its length.

Ned watches. He’s chewing his lower lip, probably trying not to moan. Hal strokes him with one hand and searches between the cheeks of his arse with the other until he finds what he wants.

“Hole, tight?” He plays with it but doesn’t enter him. Not without permission, that’s what he’s always promised himself.

Ned pushes back against his finger. “Are we doing this now?” he whispers.

“Do you want to?”

“Yes.”

They’ll need grease. Hal looks around and spies an oil lamp by the bed. He picks it up and sniffs it, and finds it smells clean enough. It’s a vegetable oil, not the tallow and fish grease Quickly fills her lamps with. It will do. “Words, willing,” he says slicking his fingers while Ned watches. “Face, flushed.” He turns Ned around and presses his face to the wall. “Body trembling... am I the first?”

Ned shivers, looking weak in the legs so Hal wraps a hand around his waist to hold him up.

“Not the first. But it wasn’t like this before. I wanted it over with. I wanted to unburden myself from my innocence.”

He’ll have none left when Hal’s finished. Hal unbuttons himself and applies the oil to his cock. Then his fingers return to Ned’s body, and he slowly but firmly presses his thumb inside.

After the initial tense, Ned soon relaxes.

“Whoever took you before did me a great service,” Hal whispers. “You’ve opened yourself like a whore.”

“He unmanned me,” Ned replies, shuddering as Hal finds where they will share their pleasure.

“Did you like feeling that way?”

“Yes.”

Hal removes his thumb and gives Ned a moment to breathe as he lines his cock up as a replacement. “Open yourself again,” he says, and when he feels the shift of Ned’s hole against the tip of his prick he shoves himself inside.

Ned buckles beside him, legs giving way entirely. Hal’s still holding him up, and it’s a struggle, though the lad isn’t heavy the way Hal is. He can maintain most of the weight alongside his thrusts, exhausting though they may be.

Having his cock inside another person is never unpleasant, but this is luxury. Ned is so weak now, so willing, and Hal must lead him to pleasure as best he can for he is no state to make demands. So Hal has him fast and hard, puts a hand over his mouth when he knows he’ll give them away and revels in the seed that shoots from his lover, happily sharing his own.

Afterward they wash and tuck themselves away. Hal helps Ned move the trunks and they are soon sat upon them, talking quietly of what they’ve just done.

“Are you all right?” Hal asks eventually. If he’s bruised or torn Ned he won’t forgive himself.

Ned flushes a little and shifts on his seat. “Yes, quite all right. It was exciting.”

“Better than the first time?”

“Yes.”

He smiles at Hal and offers nothing more, but Hal knows there has been at least two men to have what they’ve wanted from Ned.

“What of the other man who touched you?”

Ned shrugs. “He knew what he wanted and I gave it to him with such force he called me Jove all night. It hasn’t all been one way.”

“It won’t all be one way after this,” Hal assures him.

After some more talk, they hear Geoffrey’s voice outside. Hal jumps from his seat and goes directly to the door.

“I must go,” he says, “it wouldn’t do to meet your brother here.”

It wouldn’t do to have the conversation that would follow. It is imminent now, but Hal would prefer Ned saw what he is rather than heard it from his brother. Better yet, Geoffrey would bring to court a useless second son and find his connections far exceed his own. The court should view Ned as Hal’s companion rather than Geoffrey’s brother, for in the future, he’ll be an important man.

“Come,” Ned says, and they slip down the stairs and are soon out into the kitchen garden while Geoffrey enters through the front door. They collect Hal’s horse from the stables and then, with only a friendly goodbye, he’s off back to Westminster to perform his duties as a young prince should.


	32. Chapter Thirty-Two

Chapter Thirty-Two

The palace feels different on Ned’s second visit. Ned arrives on horseback with great ceremony and in his best clothes, hoping he sees Hal before he’s introduced to anyone important. There’s little time to stop and think what to say, and he’s in no position yet to ask for Hal, but he sits with his brother, sister, and the Pearces while they await entrance, feeling like a fool.

He’s nobody, yet Geoffrey has insisted on him coming and Hal has been just as determined he should be there. The servants behave as if he’s important and he wonders what the royals see in Geoffrey that he does not. They’ve shared a room almost all their lives and Ned knows he farts and shits and pisses just like the animals in the barn, and he has their level of education and experience amongst great men. Why should anyone care about him?

They’re seated in the great hall with other members of the court. Here are some sensible men who don’t give Geoffrey anything more than a glance before they continue to talk amongst themselves, though others make an effort to seek him out and speak to him. Ned greets them all, but looks around for Hal whenever the conversations lull.

Suddenly there’s a flurry of activity in the corner of the room and everyone stands. It’s the king come to do whatever it is kings do. Ned doesn’t know, he’s only seen the king once when he was a boy and hasn’t much thought of him since despite the estate’s proximity to Westminster. As he spots the old man he thinks he must be the same age as his father and yet they’re so different in situation. He wonders what the king thought of his father when they met—likely not much, or he’d not have sent him on his way.

The king surveys the room as he walks towards them, eyes lighting quickly upon Ned. He approaches with purposes now, looking him up and down.

“Edward Poins?”

“Yes, your majesty,” Ned says and bows. “It’s an honour to be invited to the palace.”

“You’re Harry’s friend?”

Harry. And from the mouth of the king! Hal is apparently a very different man here, even down to his name. No wonder he thought himself disreputable for merely stepping into the Boar’s Head. Most near anything would be a step down.

“Yes.”

There’s a murmur around the court. Ned remembers his reputation and says, “He and I often share a drink and some talk when we see each other in London.”

“That’s who you’ve been meeting?” Geoffrey says, stunned. The king looks at him askance and he says, “Apologies your majesty. I didn’t know my brother was so well-connected.”

“Where do you drink?” the king asks.

“The Boar’s Head Tavern, usually. They have some pretty wenches as I’m sure Harry will attest. He’s not shy with them, not when I’ve seen him there at any rate.”

There are ladies present and he’s soon reminded of that by the fuss his comment causes, but the king seems pleased and pats Ned on the shoulder. “Very good, very good,” he says. Then he’s off to speak to others present without giving Geoffrey a second glance.

Then Hal appears, racing through the door towards him. “Poins!” he says, and they embrace in a friendly sort of way, slapping each other’s back and grinning at each other. It’s only when Ned steps back and really looks at Hal that he sees the difference in him. It’s not merely the setting, nor the joviality, though that feels strange compared to the desire he’s used to seeing writ so plainly on Hal’s face. No, the difference is his clothes.

He’s wearing purple velvet. It’s a deep, rich purple, not the bright, brash colour you’d associate with kings and yet there’s something regal about it. No one wears purple but the royals.

“You look well,” Hal says. “How long have you been here?”

“Long enough to scandalise every lady in the court,” the king replies for him, though he’s across the room now and Ned didn’t know he was being watched.

Hal laughs and it looks so natural, so easy. “Poins seems to have that effect on women.”

Ned shrugs at the king, then chances a look at Geoffrey and Nell who both stare dumbly back at him.

Hal turns his attention to Nell and takes her hand to kiss it. “It’s a pleasure to meet you again, Eleanor.”

The poor girl seems lost for words, and that Hal gives the back of her hand a lingering kiss doesn’t help.

“If you’re not looking for a wife then leave my sister be,” Ned says. The last thing he needs is Nell falling in love with Hal and Ned hates to think of those lips touching anyone but himself.

“Alas, I’m not,” Hal replies. “But you’ll have your eye on every other woman in the room. What else am I to do?”

They’re soon called to the table. Geoffrey and Nell are seated further down but Hal seats Ned next to him near the top. They talk about everything and nothing and Ned thinks again how strange it is that his lover dresses in purple and sits next to the king to eat and yet he has seen him drenched in his own piss, asleep in a whore’s bed in a filthy tavern. He’s even seen him on his knees in an alley doing the whore’s job. If he didn’t know better... but he does know better. He knows Hal and Hal couldn’t be... he couldn’t be. Ned doesn’t want him to be.

After they’ve eaten they’re invited to hunt. Hal declines immediately, and when Ned accepts because he cannot think about denying a king, Hal promises him there will be more entertainment at the palace.

“I’ve been riding all morning and I’m not changing mounts for a stag hunt,” he argues. “Stay here with me and have a game of chess and tell me all about the price of sack in Eastcheap.”

So Ned declines the king and stays with Hal. They’re soon left alone, but only as alone as any man can be in the palace, with guards watching over them and servants waiting.

They talk for a while, then Hal drops his voice low and says, “You’re doing brilliantly, my love. Better than I ever hoped. You’re exactly what you needed to be.”

“Do you think the king likes me?”

“He hates you,” Hal replies with a chuckle, “but you’re very welcome regardless.”

Ned cannot bring himself to ask what Hal means. His mind bounces around enough without contemplating any more nonsense and the guards are too close for him to enter into a deep conversation so he lets it pass.

Let it all pass, he thinks, for he’d have none of this.

The king returns early from the hunt and Ned falls back into courtly life.


	33. Chapter Thirty-Three

Chapter Thirty-Three

“Son?”

Hal looks up from his writing and sees the king stood in his doorway.

“Father?”

“What are you writing?”

Hal looks down at the scrap of paper on the table before him at the formal request for Ned’s presence two nights hence. “It’s nothing,” he says, “just a note for Poins.”

Henry wanders over to the table and takes up the letter. Hal’s glad he was sensible enough not to give in to the urge to convey his affection. His father knows, but Ned ought to remain believably oblivious.

“You should have brought him here sooner,” Henry says, glancing over it. “I like to know what I’m dealing with.”

He sounds resigned, he’s not threatening, but Hal has heard this tone before. “You don’t intend to hurt him still, do you?”

“No. But I don’t approve. I knew at once when I looked upon him that he was no good a companion for you.”

“Could you tell he was a madcap?”

“The only thing I thought when I saw him was that he had to be Poins because I thought you’d enjoy a face like his.”

Hal’s too embarrassed by the comment to respond. He’s never normally ashamed of his love for Ned, but his father has a way of spoiling even the sweetest pleasures.

“There’s a touch of Catamitus to him,” Henry continues. “What a pity if he was taken away by Jove.”

Hal knows his father well, he would not take Ned to bed, nor make him a cup bearer. If he takes Ned, he won’t be coming back. “You said you wouldn’t hurt him.”

“Oh, I won’t. He seemed exactly the sort of man you might meet at the stews in Eastcheap. I’m not worried about him seducing you. But he’s not welcome back here. I’ll not condone such behaviour from my first son.”

“But—”

“Edward Poins is not welcome, nor is his family,” Henry barks, crumpling the note in his hand. “You’re heir to the throne: live as such if you ever want to accede.”

Against every instinct, Hal has respected his father throughout the conversation, but he’ll not put up with that. “What right do you have to talk about being heir to the throne?” Henry steps back and Hal thinks he has said possibly the only thing that could hurt his thick-skinned father. “Well?” he demands. “You’ll judge Poins for drinking in a stew, and you’ll judge me for admiring him but you defied God’s divine order and I am expected to do as you say?”

“Richard stole my inheritance, I made sure it could not happen to anyone else.”

“And yet you’ll threaten mine for even looking at Poins.”

“I’ll not take anything from you. You steal from yourself consorting with men like him. Worse, you’re stealing from our subjects. They deserve a ruler, not a man who’d lead them to hell if he thought there was a pretty boy’s face to look upon.”

Harry has had enough of the conversation it seems, for he turns on his heel and leaves Hal with nothing but ink-stained fingers and a belly full of bile. Why must it always come to this? His needs or his peoples, never one without the other. He hates them, but he can’t abandon them.

His future subjects brought him to Eastcheap, for he wanted to look them in the eye, and amongst them he found Ned who he wanted so much more from. He’s had it, had the quivering body with it’s tight hole, had the soft words and the confession of love, even had the dizzy foolishness that comes with it. Ned wanted to ruin himself to be with Hal, but Hal finally realises that despite the size of his heart, he’ll never be in a position to offer Ned the same because old Harry is right—he cannot steal from his subjects. They need a leader, a leader who will take the crown because God intended it, not because other men deemed them worthy. Hal has always known he must be both, but now he realises that leaves no room to be anything else.


	34. Chapter Thirty-Four

Chapter Thirty-Four

Ned’s at home when he discovers Geoffrey has been turned away from the palace. He’s in the garden cataloguing the crop when he hears the crying and shouting.

Ned runs to him, finding Nell already there listening to him rant, her arms around Anne as she wails beside him.

“What’s happened?” Ned asks. “Is the king all right?”

“I am sure he’s fine but I cannot get near him to find out. We’re not permitted to enter Westminster Palace on orders from the king himself.”

The words seem as strange as their reception there had been. To be invited and treated well was unbelievable, and now to be excluded feels the same. “The king has banished us?” he asks, unable to keep the smile from his face. It’s so ridiculous, he can’t help but enjoy it, all the more so because he had told Hal he had no use for the king. It seems the feeling was mutual.

“We were turned away like beggars,” Geoffrey fumes. He looks at his wife. “Quiet, woman, stop your crying! All you ever do is cry!”

“I knew no good would come of marrying you and now I’m excluded from my own family because of you.”

“Not me. It’s Ned, he’s done something.” Geoffrey rounds on him. “I said you would ruin this family if you kept up your ways.”

“I’ve done nothing!”

“You’ve shamed us!”

Ned looks to Nell for help but she shakes her head at him, her eyes full of tears. He never believed her complaints and now he’s sure she’d rather have comfort than love, even as she stands next to Anne.

“I’ve done nothing to be ashamed of, nor anything that could hurt you. I made a friend in the palace. I cannot help what they think of him and assume about me.”

“You can’t lie to us,” Geoffrey says, “You can’t lie to me. I know what you’re like.”

“Have you heard rumours about me? I’d love to hear them.”

“What men say tells less than what they do, and they beat you bloody for want of another man’s board. We don’t say it but we all know it and now the king does too.”

The clatter of hooves makes them turn and Ned sees Hal thundering up the track on his horse.

“Poins!” he shouts and Geoffrey waves a hand but Hal doesn’t even look at him. Drawing his horse to a halt next to Ned he says, “I heard what happened to your family. Were you with them?”

Ned looks to Geoffrey for an answer but he gives none, just stands in stunned silence watching the two of them. There’s a calm over the whole group now that he doesn’t like.

When he looks back at Hal he finds his lover’s eyes fixed intently upon him still. He’ll have an answer from no one else.

“I was here at the house, Geoffrey and Anne have just returned.”

Now Hal spares them a look. His eyes pass over Geoffrey without a care but something like pity enters his expression when he lights upon Anne and Nell. “Forgive the king,” he says. “His position is precarious and he’s subject to whims as all men are.”

“He is forgiven if needs be,” Geoffrey says, stepping forward and bowing his head reverentially. “But we’ve not assumed he’s the cause of our family’s torment.” With the last he looks at Ned with more distaste than he might a dog.

Hal turns away from him and reaches a hand down to Ned. “Come for a drink, Poins? We should talk.”

Ned hesitates and hates himself for it. He looks at his furious brother, the blushing, tear-stained cheeks or his sisters, and then finally back at Hal. He’s doing no good here, better he go with Hal and find out exactly what is being said amongst the court.

“All right,” he says. He takes Hal’s hand and allows himself to be pulled up onto the horse. Moments later they’re galloping away. Ned looks back at his family, watches them huddle together as he goes. It would have been better for them if Hal were a criminal, then he and Ned could have run away and it wouldn’t have come to this.

Yes, better a criminal than what it was he was. Ned prayed he was some mid-ranking noble’s son, for to place him higher would give him no pleasure. He’d told Hal he wanted none of the prince too, and he’d meant it.

They ride at a good pace for a while given the horse’s heavy load. It’s only when they’re approaching Westminster that Hal slows the horse to a trot and they both slide off its back.

“Where are we going?” Ned asks.

“To my home,” Hal replies.

“I’m banished from the palace,” Ned says, “Let’s go to the Boar’s Head. Quickly will sort us a room and then we can do as we please.”

“We’ll do as we please here. I’ll get you in.”

Hal takes him to the stable and then to the kitchens. He looks comfortable amongst his servants and helps himself to sweetmeats as he passes through, tossing marchpaine and fruit to Ned as they weave their way through the throng of workers. There are passageways unseen from the public side of the palace and soon Ned finds himself in the private apartments of the royal family. Each door has a crest painted upon it, and Hal leads him to one painted with three white ostrich feathers.

Inside it is everything that could be expected of royalty. Oriental rugs, tapestries lining the walls and good furniture. There’s a highbacked chair with two lower ones on either side, a table with quill and ink, and a small case containing ten books. The fire is already made up, though it’s low, and the room is warm and cosy. There’s another door at the back which stands ajar and inside Ned spots a large bed.

He looks to Hal who is bolting the door. “We’ll have some privacy here,” he says.

“But lots of people saw you enter.”

“They saw me, and they saw a man in simple clothes following my command. We have hundreds of servants here sometimes, and given that you look like you work in the garden, there’s no reason for them to know you. Why would they think anything of your presence? We moved together, but I doubt any of them thought we are even capable of doing such.”

Hal knows his servants better than Ned, but Ned keeps closer quarters with his. “They talk,” he says, “All servants talk.”

“Then let them. It’ll take time for it to reach my father’s ears for he has gone out with the hunt and we’ll not see him until nightfall.”

Hal pulls his gloves from his hands and tosses them onto the table. Then he unbuttons his jacket and shrugs it off, dropping it over the arm of one of his chairs.

Beneath it he’s wearing black linens. Ned’s seen them before and thought them the product of ill-gotten gains, but now he wonders at the wealth of Hal—black is a colour he’ll likely never be able to afford and Hal wears it underneath his clothes rather than show it off.

“Come here,” Hal says, arms opened wide to him.

But Ned can’t move to him. His feet seemed rooted to the spot. “What are we doing here?” he asks.

“I promised myself we’d have this at least once. Let it be now.”

“Have what?”

“These are my rooms, and through there is my bed. I cannot always think of you in that pigsty of a tavern.”

Is that what Hal thinks of the Boar’s Head? And yet he has happily waded in the muck with the rest of them and never seemed to mind. He’d been the source of much of the filth that first night they spent together.

Hal leads him through to the bedroom. The bed is huge and ornately carved, and there are thick velvet drapes hanging from the posts and a mountain of soft pillows. It’s so much more than Falstaff’s room, much more too than Ned’s pallet in the hall. It’s the bed of a man born not just to wealth but to greatness.

These are the two sides of Hal. He’s a gentleman playing at being a madcap, and though Ned had always known that, he’d not dared to think about how high he must be, or have been, as he had assumed. All that mattered was what he was when they were together, but that’s no longer true. This matters.

Hal unlaces his breeches. He’s watching Ned, eyes piercing him, dagger-like. He doesn’t intend to wound, Ned thinks. It will be the smallest of deaths.

He says, “Will you say something?”

“About what?”

“Anything. What are you thinking?

“Nothing.”

“What do you see?”

“You look...” Ned doesn’t know what to say. “Surely you are aware how you look,” he mumbles, turning his eyes down.

“I’d like to hear it.”

“You look like a prince.” 

“Would you call me princely?”

“The princeliest man in all of England.”

“Then I am a prince.”

There’s a silence so loud Ned feels it ring in his ears. Outside the world continues but in this room there’s nothing but this truth that has finally been spoken aloud.

His stomach turns over in a way it did not when Hal was drenched in piss and vomit. Everyone pisses, everyone pukes, everyone has been, at some time, drunk beyond all sensibility. These are such stuff as life is made of, the lows that unite all men. Lies too, they’re base and unworthy of princes, yet princes are men too and all men lie.

The lie isn’t the bother, Ned expected no less. It’s the truth that will keep them apart.

Well, he’ll have no part of it and Hal, who confessed so sweetly to being in love with him, will surely feel the same. Why would they want any of this?

“What am I?” Ned asks.

Hal raises an eyebrow as he strips off his shirt. “You’re Ned Poins. You are no prince.”

“But what am I to you?”

Hal grins as he wraps an arm around Ned’s waist and pulls him down onto the bed. “You are fair. And you are fine. And you are of a goodly enough size and shape to sit upon my knee and feed me grapes one night and then embroil me in battle the next.”

“I’m Helen of Troy?” Ned teases.

“If you would have it so.”

“I think I would.”

Hal slips a hand between Ned’s thighs. “Not Patroclus to my Achilles?”

“Perhaps Achilles to your Patroclus,” Ned replies, copying the move. He feels the buttery soft leather of Hal’s breeches and squeezes the tight flesh beneath.

“Neither could be fair enough, pretty Ned. Helen will do you well.”

“Helen will do _you_ well,” Ned promises. He lets go of Hal’s thigh and begins to pull his breeches down. “Have you grease?”

Hal stiffens up beneath him. “Beneath the bed,” he whispers, and withdraws a little further along the bed when Ned looks beneath it.

There’s a box there, small but nicely carved. He takes it and opens the lid to find a few trinkets and a small pot of grease. It smells strongly of mint and there is a green tinge to the fat that doesn’t appear to be spoilage.

When Ned looks back at him he sees something new on Hal’s face. It’s a touch of fear.

“You don’t have to,” Ned says gently. “I understand if you don’t want to.”

“No!” Hal says “No, I do. You’re not the first even if you are the last.” He looks away and sighs. “It’s more complicated than that. The position... If it were known that I was the one who...” He doesn’t seem able to find the words.

“No one will know,” Ned promises. “I’ll tell no one.”

“But if we are found here... It would be different at the Boar’s Head... You should know I am not just son to the king. I am the Prince of Wales.”

Ned kisses him, if only to shut him up. “You are sweet as honey,” he says when their lips part.

Hal’s pushing his breeches down and rolling over onto his stomach. “I am the Prince of Wales,” he says again.

“And I am Helen of Troy.”

“No. I swear on my mother’s virtue, I am the Prince of Wales.”

“Prince Paris, surely?”

Hal pauses kicking off his breeches and looks around at him. “You think me flattered? Paris brings about the fall of Troy.” Ned has insulted him. He’s deadly serious.

So is Ned. “If this is Troy, let it burn.”

“I tell you, I am the Prince of Wales.”

Ned fights his way out of his clothes, yanking them off and tossing them aside. “If you said you were King Harry himself I would not care. I’m done with this game. I am King Ned and you are King Hal and Eastcheap is our domain.” He pushes Hal, makes him roll back over onto his back. “Won’t you kiss me again?”

Hal does as asked and Ned melts down on top of him, coming to rest between Hal’s legs. If Hal reverses their positions now he won’t fight it, but they remain in each other’s arms until he cannot help thinking with his cock rather than his head.

Then he withdraws his kisses and his weight from Hal’s body, lets him have room to turn over. Hal raises his hips like an offering and, with a gentler application than Ned was afforded when their positions were reversed, he allows Ned in.

This is a king’s arse, Ned thinks vaguely as he moves cautiously within him, but it’s such a nebulous thought that he pushes it away. He doesn’t feel happy for it, nor powerful. Hal’s status is an inconvenience in a way it would never have been if Ned knew before he fell in love.

He thrusts harder, the frustration of being lied to making him a little careless. Hal responds with a gasp, not without pleasure, so Ned maintains the pace. He wants to come, wants that one second of pure feeling when there is no truth about his lover and they are just one.

Afterward they lie in the bed together. Ned stares up at the paint on the canopy of the bed. White ostrich feathers on a black background. They’re everywhere, he thinks, and that is all he thinks.

He’s tucked beneath Hal’s arm. The pit is clammy but doesn’t smell so bad. Hal plants a kiss on his forehead and says, “This is sweetness, isn’t it?”

“Yes, this is it.”

For a few more minutes it truly is. They’re together, and Ned enjoys every moment of it as if it’s his last. Hal’s scent, his thickened muscles, the scars of battle and childhood beatings, every part of him seems a novelty again. It’s as if it never happened, as if he’s not been told that the man he loves will one day be the most powerful person in the whole world, for that is how Ned views the English throne.

King Henry fought his battles and took the crown. He couldn’t change his son, nor this moment they’re sharing, but he’s already fired his shot. They’ll never lie in this bed together again.

“We should make plans,” Ned says, rising abruptly from the bed. His veins seem to pump with pure fear and he cannot lay still and just accept this.

Hal sits up. He looks concerned, but there’s no fire in him, not even a spark. Has he not been thinking the same? “Plans for what?”

“Troy did not stand forever.”

“No. It didn’t.”

“We will need money of course,” Ned says, “More money than we have at present. Do you know where it might be had with only minimal risk to our persons?”

“You still intend to become a thief?”

“It is a very recent occupation and one I’ve not yet fully begun, but I’ll do what I must. If we are to be together like this we’ll need somewhere of our own, or at the very least a regular someroom where the walls aren’t too thin and questions aren’t asked. Needs must when the devil drives.”

“That’s why I go to the Boar’s Head.”

“And it has served us well. But we could have better that we’ve had.”

Hal reaches out to him and pulls him back down onto the bed. “There is better than this?” he asks, peppering Ned’s face with kisses.

“We will still have this, I promise you. We will always have this.”

“I would that were true.”

Ned pushes him away slightly and looks down at his lover. Hal apparently has been thinking as he has only he seems to have reached a different conclusion.

“On the good name of Poins I say it is so, we will always have each other—and it is still a good name no matter what I will do to be with you because I will do it for you alone. I am your man and you are mine and that is the truth of it. There’s nothing more important to me.”

Hal’s lips open but no words come. His brow furrows and he shakes his head softly but there’s no vehemence even in that. How will he ever be king?

“Won’t you swear the same?” Ned asks.

“I wish I could. But you know I cannot.”

Ned does know it. He leaves the bed and dresses in silence with Hal making no attempt to stop him. Then he goes, walks through the palace like he should be there, and no one else stops him either.


	35. Chapter Thirty-Five

Chapter Thirty-Five

Hal will never back down from a fight again.

Never. If he lives to be a hundred he will return every slight, take what is his right, and punish whoever merits it, for he has been so spineless this day he’ll never forgive himself if he goes so low again.

But what was he supposed to do? Ned was completely unreasonable. At first it was as if the truth belonged to someone else, then it was as if it didn’t matter. Ned had made up his mind that they were to run off and live as bandits and Hal was meant to go along with it.

That could never be and Ned knew it. Hal ought to be furious with him for forcing a fight where there should be none. Other men would give anything to be so close to the man who’d one day be king but Ned still wanted no part of it.

Yes, Hal ought to be furious with him. That was the rational response to such madness. And yet he saved the anger for himself because Ned was offering him a thing rarer that the jewels in his father’s crown. He offered love and happiness and companionship. He offered good fucking, and drinking, and song and jests and the pleasure of being known and understood.

Ned offered all he had—himself—and expected they would decide upon the details later together. And Hal offered only his heart. He cannot pledge his company forever with it.

It is a full heart. Overflowing with love for Ned and able to carry it all their lives and never wavering, not in this. But a distant heart won’t keep either of them warm at night.

In the following days he behaves as if he were a new man. The Lord Justice troubles him not and his father is almost tender. His brother John offers to hunt with him, and that means the most of all. John and his cousin Mortimer were once the best friends Hal had.

They were in the days before Falstaff, at any rate, for though they are good men, Falstaff’s strangeness, his tutelage in lewd behaviour, and his monstrous lies are all qualities Hal learnt to appreciate if not love.

Ned, he loved but didn’t appreciate and now he’d lost him for want of a promise. He should have lied, should have said he’d riot forever and they would never part, then Ned would still be there waiting for him, ready to hurry to Eastcheap on his word.

Then Sunday arrives and resolve leaves. Hal forgoes church and rides out alone to the forest to wait for a glimpse of Ned that doesn’t come. He wanders between the trees, lingers at the places they kissed or touched one another. Old haunts, but places he barely knows.

He ought to go to the Boar’s Head. The king doesn’t approve, but what does that matter? He won’t do anything. Hal’s his son and heir, and Harry has never forgotten that, even when he made his boyish crush on Scroop seem sordid, as if the older man corrupted him, and turned Hal’s dalliance with the kitchen boy into a crime that must be concealed. But, there was no real punishment. It would be a brave man who tried to beat him now, and he has never been confined to the palace. There’s no threat to send him away. Between the king and the Justice there will be nothing worse than scorn and Hal has received so much of that lately that another mouthful of it should be no more trouble.

A mouthful of his father’s bile for a mouthful of something better from Ned. It seems a fair trade now he thinks of it, plus there may be drink and games and jests. All good things.

So he mounts his horse and rides to Eastcheap that afternoon. Ned didn’t attend church with his sisters, but if he steps out and looks for Hal he’d find expect to find him there as much as anywhere. Where else would they meet?

There follows an afternoon’s drinking with Falstaff as Hal watches the door.

Doll is sitting on Falstaff’s lap watching Hal intently. Every now and again she’ll leave Falstaff and sally over to Hal, perhaps hoping to make a coin from him. The offer isn’t without its temptation today. Ned is the one he wants, and he’d have a boy over a girl if there was one on offer, but more than once she has proven herself capable of bringing him off and he could use the distraction.

Eventually she slides onto his knee uninvited and he wraps his arms around her. Let the palace spies see this, he thinks.

“How now, fair woman,” he says. “You’re well today?”

She’s heavier than when she last sat atop him and he notices a little extra in her cheeks and her bosom.

“Well enough,” she says and plants a kiss on his cheek. He avoids the second, aimed at his lips, but he gives her the coin she’s looking for and fondles her breasts for a while, slipping a hand into her loosened stays. The soft flesh excites him for a moment but he soon sends her on her way. He can’t take his attention from the door.

“You’ll not get better than that,” Falstaff comments idly.

That Doll is an expert at swordplay is a given, but Hal would like more than that. “I’m waiting for Ned but I don’t trust he’ll come.”

“You’re right not to trust him,” Falstaff says. He’s staring into the bottom of his ale cup and Hal wishes the whoreson had the courage to meet his eye. “Ned Poins is a terrible runt—a thief, you know, I’ll say aloud what the other men here will not—and he’s quite the worst of them all for he had no need to take the money meant for the good mistress who runs this fine establishment. A true villain if ever there was one.”

Ned may have intended himself more recently for a life of crime but this cannot be rewrought as proof of a life-long disposition towards it. “He is a truer man than any other here tonight. I have lied to him, as has every man and woman here and done so upon my command. He has always been an honest man and if you speak another word against him, I will punish you as I see fit.”

Falstaff has nothing more to say on the matter, though his face tells his affront.

“Francis!” Hal calls. “Will you send a trustworthy man out to search for Poins? There’s five shillings for you if you can find him tonight.” He’s handing over the money before Francis can even agree to look, for he wants the job done. He must have Ned’s company tonight, he won’t do without it.

It’s a long hour before news of Ned’s whereabouts arrives at the tavern.

“He’s at home,” Francis says, offering the money back to Hal but he waves it aside.

“You told him I awaited him here?”

“Yes. But he said he was very ill and could not leave the house.”

“Thank you.”

Falstaff’s opening his mouth but Hal silences him with a look that promises fury. He throws down some coins for their drinks, leaving enough that Falstaff should enjoy a few more, and is quickly on his way to fetch his horse.

The clouds darken as Hal rides up to the Poins estate. It begins to rain and very soon he’s cold and wet and wishing for a warm fire. When he arrives at the house he takes his horse to the stable himself, leaving it with a lad who is very surprised to see a visitor but takes it without question, commenting on the quality of the beast.

They’re of an age and it throws Hal for a moment, for they’re so different in situation. He’s a man who can enter a stranger’s stable and immediately command the respect of the servants. This lad is someone who’d be almost invisible to most. Well, Hal would notice him, for he’s not unattractive, but to his father and the court they’d likely never learn his face. Here is a man who could do what and who he pleased given the means, but the means made men interesting, and interesting men will always be subject to more scrutiny. 

Hal gives him some coins for the feed, and a little extra for himself. If Ned’s right about the family purse, the boy won’t be well paid.

Then it occurs to him that the man he loves knows this lad, he’s seen his face every day, probably recognised his approach by the smell of horses when he wasn’t in sight. He’d speak his name often.

“Here,” Hal says, grabbing a fistful more coin from his purse and giving it to him. “I have heard the master here is rarely generous.”

The young man looks at his hand, his mouth falling open. “Thank you, sir!” he says, grinning.

“Will that buy me a favour?”

“What do you need?”

“Ned. Will you fetch him here and give us privacy?”

There’s less joy on the lad’s face now. “Who shall I say wants him?”

“Give no name. I am the Prince of Wales, but he will not come for me. Tell him one of the horses is ill, or that the blankets are missing, just something that will bring him out here.”

All the servants must know by now that the family have been excluded from the palace, for there was enough of a scene about it when Hal last came to the house.

The lad disappears out into the rain and Hal takes a seat on his stool, closing his eyes while he waits. He hears the droplets on the floor, the breathing of the animals, and then footsteps splashing through the rain and two voices.

“Get in there and see him.” That is Geoffrey, Hal thinks.

“I’ve nothing to say to him. He made it clear that our friendship couldn’t continue on the terms I wished it to. It’s over.”

“Stupid boy. Who are you to dictate terms to a prince?”

“Prince?” Ned repeats the word with such scorn Hal winces at the sound of it. “I made friends with a man I met in a brothel, I had no idea he was a prince.”

“So you are lucky. You plucked the rose from amongst the thorns. Go tell him that.”

“He would laugh in my face and rightly so. Let me go! I’m not going in there!”

There’s a scuffle. Hal goes to the doorway and looks out at the Poins brothers fighting each other in the rain. Geoffrey has one hand holding Ned and the other fighting him off, and Ned is hitting him and trying to pull away.

Hal leans on a beam and says, “How now, Master Poins? I don’t believe I asked for your company.”

The fight stops abruptly and Geoffrey lets go of Ned. “Your highness,” Geoffrey says, bowing to him.

“Tell me, what is the point of being the Prince of Wales if I cannot make even servants do as I ask? I told a server to fetch your brother with no luck, and I asked your stable boy to lie to Ned so he might arrive alone.”

“I am just here to make sure Edward attends you. I’ll leave you be.” He shoots a look at Ned and hurries back up to the house.

“Don’t blame the lad, Geoffrey insisted he would see to the horse and then it all came out.” He’s said his part, defended his servant. Then, after a moments pause he says, “Well? What do you want with me?”

Hal stands aside, gesturing for him to enter but he still doesn’t move. Can the rain really be better than shelter with Hal?

Hal waits. He has time. Ned steps forward, then hesitates and return to his initial spot. “I made a fool of myself over you more than once and I don’t intend to do it again. Please, let me have my peace.”

Peace is something Hal will never know, nor any man around him. There’s a single brief second in which he sees himself leaving Ned and letting him have the peace he’s asked for. A safe, comfortable life until his father dies and then what? Marriage, perhaps. Or he’ll look for a position somewhere. He might even take up a comfortable trade. Will he wish he had the ear of a prince then?

“You’re no fool,” Hal says.

“You made it quite clear what I am.”

“Fair and fine. My Helen. My Achilles.”

Ned moves at speed into the stable, snatching Hal’s arm and pulling him in beside him. “I am nothing to you,” he hisses, “You don’t love me as much as you think you do.”

“Don’t I? You are more than you know but you cannot be everything. I bear a duty to more men than you.”

“Then why play with me? Why pretend otherwise? I made my decision and I was ready to give up everything for you. Everything! My home, my family, my name, I’d have abandoned it all.”

Hal knows Ned’s home is temporary, his family are insufferable and his name has no currency to it. Yet there was a time when he worried about his allowance and his siblings marriage prospects as if these things were of national importance. Ned isn’t the man he was, and Hal knows which nameless, familyless fool changed him.

“If you’d known, life would have been less sweet.”

“You’d have been my sweet honey lord.”

“And you’d have loved me enough to acquire everything you your heart desired rather than throw it all away.” Ned scowls at him so Hal adds, “Surely it has crossed your mind that I might change your life for the better if you wait until my father is dead? You’d have the ear of the king, a title, and lands enough for riches beyond even the expectations of your avaricious brother.”

“I know it. But favour ebbs and flows in court, I’ve seen that firsthand. I’d rather spend ten thousand nights with you beneath the stars and know you loved me than a single night in your palace bed.”

“If you love your pride more than me, you’ll not have either,” Hal says, “that is the truth of it.”

“I’m not proud.” Ned’s lower lip trembles and he chews it. They stand together in silence for a while, staring into each other’s eyes. It’s all writ there on Ned’s face how deeply he loves and how broken his heart is. Any other man would celebrate surely, but not Ned.

“Why can’t you be happy?” Hal whispers. “Why can’t you love a prince?”

“You told me yourself this would have an end. Let it be now, please, for I cannot spend my life thinking that every moment with you will be the last.”

“I love you.”

“Yet I am inconvenient. You’ve other men to love and to lead and you come here and ask me to fill my purse with your coins now because I’ll need them later when you’ve done with me.”

It’s a knife to Hal’s heart. “Inconvenient,” he murmurs. “Yes, that’s a good word for love. But not for you. I want you by my side when I am king—my top advisor. My best friend.”

“But not as your lover.”

“Not for lack of want.” He takes Ned’s hand and hold’s it to his chest. “You have this,” he promises. “You’ll always have this, but there will come a day when I must make decisions with my head, not my heart, my gut, or my loins. I’m done with lying to you about it. We cannot be as free at the court as we are in Eastcheap, but when the time comes you’ll be there with me. This is the only promise I can make you. We will never be apart.”

Ned’s fingers close about the fabric of Hal’s raiment and he is pulled into a kiss. “Sweet honey lord,” Ned murmurs. “I will always be your shadow.”


End file.
